


Mumukshutva

by omphalos



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Dark, Dubious Consent, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Magic, Mindfuck, Romance, Soul Bond, Upbeat ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-28
Updated: 2009-12-27
Packaged: 2017-10-05 08:59:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 30,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/39960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/omphalos/pseuds/omphalos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mumukshutva: an intense longing for liberation. A bereaved and deeply depressed Giles find his dreams far more welcoming than real life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set between season 5 and season 6.

_"Yesterday is but a dream, tomorrow but a vision. But today, well lived, makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope. Look well, therefore, to this day, for it and it alone is life."_  
\-- Sanskrit proverb, possibly apocryphal.

**London, January 1976**

"Fucking right on."

Ripper slowly became aware that he was grinning stupidly. He felt like he'd just come off the big Waltzers at Southend after an endless, breath-nicking ride of a lifetime, and then some. Hosting Eyghon was just... out of this bloody world. _This_. It was for this that he'd left his family and future. Well, this and Ethan.

Right now, Ethan was lying beneath him, face down to the floor. "You all right, love?" Ripper asked, pulling himself out, up, and off. Both of them seemed to have lost their jeans somewhere along the rather hazy line. Ethan's shirt was in tatters too.

There was a grunt in reply from his lover, almost indistinguishable from the grunts coming from Thom, whose sleeping body Eyghon had apparently moved on to after leaving Ripper's. Thom seemed, to Ripper's quick glance, to be attempting to shag both Deirdre and Randall simultaneously. The demonic guise Thom now wore looked like a masquerade mask on his chubby features. Ripper laughed. Even riding a demon, the boy was still about as suave as grubby terry-towelling.

They were all still inside the ritual circle, the necessary sacrifice a small heap of blood and feathers in the centre. Phillip was kneeling up watching the others, his hand around his cock, working furiously, as if his life would be at stake if he couldn't keep himself on the brink at all times. All of them had at least one arm bare, showing off their new tats, proud in the blunt ugliness of the mark, the seal of contract.

The air stunk of Ethan's rank incense. Heady and intense, rich with dope and pungent spice, it made everything seem that much more vivid and unreal to Ripper. And that was without the endorphin kick from riding the demon, which was fading now like the echo of orgasm, but the memory of the power he'd held remained. Riding Eyghon had been, oh, crown and sceptre and key to the city; he'd felt like there was nothing he couldn't do, nothing he _shouldn't_ do.

Christ, he'd never known a high like it, and he wanted to share, to boast and expound, to wax lackadaisical to the one person who'd let him without taking the piss. Well, not and mean it, anyhow.

"Love?" he asked again, nudging gently with the heel of his hand upon Ethan's arse. Ripper's breath caught on sudden barbed wire as he noticed a dark red smear near his hand. "Ethan?" he said, more urgently.

Ethan rolled slowly over, winced, and propped himself up on an elbow to look at Ripper. "Hope my turn to be put under comes soon," he grumbled, but then brightened. "Was it as much of an up as it seemed?"

"Yeah, completely," Ripper confirmed, but he was still frowning. "Have I hurt you?"

"I'll heal." Ethan pulled himself up into a sprawl, wincing slightly. There were dark bruises on his shoulders, and his lips were split and swollen. He seemed to be studying Ripper's features, now presumably fully human again; Ripper wished he'd asked for a Polaroid to be taken. "You were," Ethan chuckled slightly, "demonic, an unstoppable force. But I, sadly, was not an unmoveable object."

Ripper was still frowning. He could feel the line between his brows like a finger pressing in. It felt incongruous against the echoes of power and joy still throbbing inside him.

"Ah," Ethan said, looking slightly exasperated. "I know that expression. Come on, Ripper. There's no need for guilt. Didn't we agree that our responsibility would end with ourselves? Do as thou wilt and all that? Minor injuries were inevitable; we knew that going in."

God, Ethan was beautiful.

He always had been, of course, with his curls like a Botticelli cupid, dark eyes, long loose limbs, and that mouth Ripper could never resist. He'd followed that mouth from Oxford to London, hadn't he? Let that mouth talk him into ever greater excesses. Somehow, bruised and bleeding, the mouth was even more exquisite.

Ripper cringed inside. What was he becoming?

Ethan, of course, had seen it in Ripper; had renamed him for it. Ethan had encouraged Ripper to release it on prats in the street who took the piss, usually out of Ethan. And it felt good to let loose, to break bones, split flesh apart, make the tossers scream. It felt like power, like... Eyghon.

It felt like a balm to the little boy who'd been strapped into a pre-set future from the day he was born.

But he wasn't meant to do it to friends, to people he cared about. Ripper looked at his battered lover and felt aroused. He felt sick. "Not sure I like the side effects," he admitted gruffly, reaching out to lightly stroke fingertips over some marks he'd spotted on Ethan's arm -- blood-crusted half-moons.

"Randall made those," Ethan said dryly. "Sorry, but you can't hog all the blame, delicious though I'm sure it is."

"Why don't you care?" Ripper asked. Behind him, Deirdre was either climaxing or being murdered. Judging by Ethan's disgusted expression, it was the former. Ethan didn't think much of the only girl in their group, maybe because he knew Ripper fancied her.

"It's just flesh." Ethan shrugged. "It doesn't matter what we do with it; it's not what's important."

"Then what is?"

Ethan reached out and stroked Ripper's leg, his fingers so light that the touch felt like a whisper passing over his bare flesh. "You. Me. Who we are inside. The night. The magic."

"We're no one at all without our bodies," Ripper pointed out.

"They're just vehicles," Ethan insisted. "Containers. Nobody cares about the chocolate box once it's opened."

There was a roar from behind them, and they both looked around to see Thom coming deep inside Deirdre's throat. His eyes, not so much red as dark pink like strawberry Spangles, jerked from side to side as if searching for something. Still hard, Thom shoved Deirdre violently down to the floor and made a grab for Phillip's hair, dragging the lad to him; there was no rest period while Eyghon was in you. Phil cried out.

Ethan caught Ripper's arm as he moved to help. "Leave them. Remember what we agreed? Don't spoil it."

"Thom's hurting them."

"He already has. _You_ already have. That's Eyghon, and that's what we signed up for. Don't wreck their picnic, Ripper."

Reluctantly, Ripper sat back down, keeping his back guiltily to the disturbing scene. "I don't like this; it's... it's too bloody dangerous." He caught himself rubbing at his own ears as if half-expecting them to still be batlike and protruding.

"Ah." Ethan found his trousers, which were close to shredded, and took out his small flask from one pocket. "What's the worst that could happen? Some cuts, some tears, some bruising? Even broken bones will heal. Relax, my dear. Enjoy it all while it lasts."

"Much worse could happen," Ripper insisted, a familiar feeling of being the country mouse to Ethan's mouse-about-town sophisticate settling over him. "What if Eyghon claims us? We wear his mark; we've called him. It's not impossible he could find a way to claim our souls."

Ethan took a swig from his flask and then chuckled darkly. "Bit late to worry about that, isn't it? Anyway, he's already been inside of you, and you're fine. Soul's still your own." He passed the flask to Ripper. "Drink deep. You need to relax. You've got the post-possession jitters."

Needing Ethan's homemade and approaching lethal potion more than he wanted to admit, Ripper swigged it back. Shuddering at the sweet-bitter taste, he then concentrated on staying relatively upright for the next few moments. Ethan had always refused to tell anyone his recipe, but Ripper knew for certain that it contained both liquid opium and absinthe -- the proper Spanish stuff with the full quota of wormwood.

Ethan was staring at the heap of moaning bodies behind Ripper with interest, but Ripper found he didn't want to turn around. He put the flask down and drew Ethan to him. "Don't want you to lose your soul either."

"Never happen," Ethan reassured him with a smirk. "_Can't_ happen, anyway. It's already claimed."

Cold trickled into Ripper's guts and bones, the pleasant hum from the potion instantly vanishing. He grabbed Ethan's shoulders and shook him, staring at his lover in horror. "What the bloody hell have you done?"

Wincing in obvious pain as Ripper pressed into the bruises already there, Ethan said, "No, you stupid git. I've done nothing. I meant _you_."

Guiltily, Ripper slowly released his hands. "Me?"

"Can't sell my soul to any demon, my dear, when I've already signed it over to you."

"Yes, well. Romantic metaphor is all very well, but this is reality, Ethan, and-" There was so much noise coming from behind Ripper that he had to stop talking, which was a good job really as he'd heard himself becoming increasingly pompous. He hated it when he sounded like the life from which he'd escaped.

Looking around, he saw that Phil and Randall were wrestling the semi-possessed Thom down onto his back, and he was enraged about it, howling and cursing, fangs gnashing. The plan seemed to be for Deirdre to ride Thom, and despite his misgivings, Ripper felt his cock respond to the idea; he wanted to see it. He groaned, confused. Which emotion was the correct one here?

He never knew the answer to such questions, which is why he invested so much bloody time and energy into controlling his feelings. And why Ethan seemed to take it as a personal challenge to make Ripper let loose, make the control drop and mayhem ensue.

He heard Ethan tut and felt fingers on his cheek, turning his face back towards the other boy. Ethan asked gently, "What made you think it was metaphor?"

Ripper was drugged and coming down from a massive high; it therefore took him several seconds to understand what Ethan meant. "Has to have been a metaphor," he said slowly.

Ethan's smile was almost sympathetic.

"You can't have!" Ripper exclaimed. "I'd know."

Ethan chuckled a little sadly and put his hand on his heart. "I, Ethan Rayne, do so solemnly swear that my soul is and has been the property of one Rupert Giles since December the twenty-sixth, nineteen hundred and seventy five. This I swear by..." He seemed to search around for something serious enough. "By Chaos and in the names of Janus and Eris."

Ripper stared at him in amazement and more than a little fear. "My God, Ethan. Why?"

Ethan's expression seemed to fill with hurt, and he looked down. "It was a really good Christmas?" he murmured. "Only one ever, really."

Ripper's thoughts were running on the spot, moving fast and getting nowhere. He felt like Ethan was handing him a book of promissory notes for failure. Ripper couldn't possibly live up to whatever it was Ethan hoped for from him. Hadn't he already run away from the burden of great expectations? He didn't know what to say. He... cared for Ethan, of course he did, but this was... far too much.

"Ethan," he started cautiously, but then his fogged brain noticed Ethan's chest was shaking. Bloody hell, was he crying?

But no. Ethan lifted his head and revealed that he was laughing like a sodding clown, tears streaming down his face. "Just kidding, Ripper," he said gleefully. His expression was so appallingly smug that Ripper wanted to smack it from his face.

"You little-" but Ripper got no further as, at that moment, Thom appeared suddenly from the side.

The possessed boy tackled Ethan first, slamming him down onto the floor so that Ripper actually heard the breath forced from Ethan's lungs. Thom did something to Ethan's mouth that Ripper would never have described as a kiss; it was more like the tenderising of meat.

Ripper stared in sick fascination at the skin of Ethan's chest, which parted in long bloody lines as Thom dragged Eyghon-sharpened talons down and across. Ripper should do something, he knew, but he didn't even twitch a fingertip. Ethan moaned and writhed, his gaze never leaving Ripper's face.

"Ethan..." Ripper murmured, so softly he never heard the word outside his head. But Thom looked up at Ripper, his fanged mouth a mess of Ethan's blood.

A fraction of a second later, Ripper was on his back trying to stave off a rapacious attack all of his own.


	2. Chapter 2

_"Lokah samastha sukhino bhavanthu." (May this world be established with a sense of well being and happiness.)_  
\-- Sanskrit prayer.

**Sunnydale, September 2001**

"You're working too hard," Ethan says as he puts the mug down on the coffee table beside Giles' notes. "If you don't take things a little easier, you'll make yourself ill."

Giles glances up at him. "I'm sorry, love. It's just, with Buffy gone, none of us-"

"Can afford to be complacent, I know. You know I understand." Ethan sits down beside him on the sofa and combs his fingers through Giles' hair above his ear. The touch feels almost analgesic, and Giles moves into it slightly. "You look so tired though, my dear," Ethan continues. "You can't expect me not to worry."

A little sunburst of gratitude warms Giles inside. He lets his pen drop and turns to softly kiss Ethan. It really is rather nice having his old lover back with him again. "Why did I ever let you go?" he murmurs after their lips part wetly.

"As I recall," Ethan replies good-naturedly, "_you_ left _me_. Hush now." He strokes Giles' head as if soothing a fretful cat. "Didn't we agree not to discuss what's gone, only what's now or is to come?"

"Still so wise." Giles wonders at that, putting an arm around Ethan and pulling him closer. "And so beautiful."

Ethan seems unchanged by the years that have made a weathered crag of Giles' own features. There are no lines on the soft skin Giles' fingers now explore, none of those spindly cuneiform histories that inform of Giles' own story all too plainly. There's no grey in the thick brown curls that Giles kisses, inhaling the product scent as if it were balm. Ethan is only a very slim whisker short of a miracle.

A sudden incongruous memory of an old man arises, familiar dark eyes in a stranger's ravaged face. Who is that, and why is Giles recalling his image?

Ethan's frowning. "You're brooding," he says. He has never liked Giles' attention to be other than upon him for too long, but Giles doesn't mind. Now more than ever he appreciates being needed by someone; it gives him a reason to carry on. "Are you thinking about Buffy?" Ethan's question is characteristically perceptive.

"I was heading in that direction," Giles confesses.

"My poor Ripper," Ethan says, his voice rich with warmth and sympathy. With a smooth surge of movement, he is up on the sofa, straddling Giles' thighs. "It's not easily recovering from the loss of someone whose existence defined you."

Giles wonders how Ethan could possibly know that. Then, with a sudden clenching realisation, he understands. "Oh. Ethan, I'm so very sorry." He can't even remember now why he did it, why he left. His reasons seem… meaningless.

"Shh," Ethan soothes; the noise makes Giles think of English autumns, spent warm behind glass while the October winds bully the sycamores. "Build no abodes in the past, my dear. It's a dark and broken land and cannot be mended." He kisses Giles softly on the forehead, on both cheeks just below the eyes.

"I was a fool," Giles insists. "I blamed you for-"

"Rupert, hush. Please. Don't corrupt the bright now with the dismal then. We're together here, in this place, and that's all that matters."

Giles knows that's not so, knows that the past is vital catechism for every mortal soul, but Ethan denies the past with every wrinkle missing from his perfect face. "Did you use some kind of enchantment?" Giles asks him, and a dark disturbance seems to momentarily flicker in Ethan's eyes. "To stay so young? Is there a portrait in an attic somewhere of a hideous old man?"

Again, there's that memory that isn't. An older man, certainly, but not hideous. Who _is_ he?

Ethan looks petulant and doesn't answer, does in fact take Giles' face in his long fingers and bend to kiss him with drawn out sensuality. Kissing Ethan is always like biting into the perfect nectarine, impossibly sweet and juicy, and discovering it is stuffed with jalapenos.

Knowing the kiss is meant to distract does not prevent Giles from being distracted. One of his hands tangles in dark curls, the other moves without conscious permission to the small of Ethan's back, jerking him closer. Ethan dances over his lap like a caught animal, and Giles feels his blood surging into his cock.

The kiss pauses, thin bands of saliva snapping softly to his lips as Ethan pulls back. "Let me help you relax," he offers. "Let me give you what you're missing."

Doting and heated, Giles smiles and nods, and Ethan slips down his body like a garment dropping to the floor. Giles' knees are pulled apart, and Ethan moves between, every movement smooth and practised. Grinning up at Giles, Ethan tells him, "I'm really rather fond of you, you know," before playing teasing fingertips over the bulging asymmetry in Giles' trousers.

"Ethan," he breathes as his eyes flicker briefly shut. Mercurially quick fingers undo his belt and button. Memories of Ethan's mouth, of the things he can do with it, threaten to overwhelm Giles as if he were still a sex-ready lad. "Oh, love."

The tug at his zipper is a pull on his heart. Emotions, so long the things to be beaten down, pushed into underground vaults -- archived then and safe to forget -- are suddenly acceptable again. Not since Ethan was last with Giles has it felt so good to simply _feel_.

"I'm so glad you're back." How could Giles have survived the loss of his Slayer without this blessing?

Ethan smiles tenderly up at him before peeling the sides of Giles' trousers apart, revealing embarrassingly crinkled boxers. Giles doesn't even have time to cringe however before Ethan's hand is slipping inside them. "Do you know how long I've been waiting to do this to you again?" Ethan murmurs, sounding rather emotional himself.

"Dear God..." Giles groans through gritted teeth as his cock is gathered up like fragile treasure, like honey from the hive. Knowing fingers squeeze gently up the length of it before drawing it out into the air.

"Still the best, Ripper," Ethan murmurs; Giles can feel the words as warmth and the shiver of lips across the head of his cock. "Still made to make my mouth water." And before Giles can chuckle at the old slogan, there's wetness and heat and slippery pressure, and oh...

"God," he bites off, tipping his head back, pressing it into the top of the sofa. "Ethan."

Giles is lost, wandering blind in a maelstrom of memory and long-imprinted response. Ethan's lips, his tongue, his teeth... Dear Lord, he's forgotten nothing. His fingers claw into the cushions as Ethan's spider over his balls. Ethan is making small, happy noises in the back of his throat; they sound almost studious. Giles tries to slow his panting, control his reactions, hold himself back, but it's hard. He's so hard.

"Ethan… Ethan, I'm going to... It won't take long." Ethan pauses halfway down Giles' cock, his eyes lift, his gaze meeting Giles', and he grins around his mouthful. Giles feels his groin tighten at the sight. Good God. Still so beautiful, his rascal boy, his gypsy urchin, his… "Love," he breathes.

Ethan reaches out for one of Giles' hands from the cushion and pulls it to him, pushes Giles' fingers into dark curls, encouraging Giles' to hold his head, inviting him to do so much more, and so Giles does. Without thought or question, his fingers thread through Ethan's hair, and he starts to hump upwards, fucking Ethan's mouth. Teeth scrape his length, and the sensation is so far removed from pain he hears himself laugh. The desire in his loins is huge and heavy as if all the blood he has is lying there, distilling, intensifying, and oh God, Ethan, Ethan, Ethan...

***

Giles woke with a tiny gasp, clutching desperately at the tail feathers of the dream, but it was gone like the last swallow of summer. He was unarguably and unhappily awake.

For a while he lay still, collecting together the fragments of the night. The feel of Ethan's lips, softly teasing, and the unlikely comfort of his presence, dark eyes like a welcoming door after a long trek through icy wilderness -- these things and more Giles identified, collated, and then discarded as waste. Once the dream-chaff was gone, he seemed to have precious little grain of truth to show for his efforts. A suitable metaphor, he caught himself thinking bitterly, for a sterile life.

As he sat up in bed, he felt the covers drag stickily against his belly. Oh. He hadn't done _that_ in a long time. Always Ethan when he did, of course; never one of the few and far between lovers since. Not even Jenny. Always Ethan. Giles' body remembered even while his mind was self-intimidated into forgetting.

Ethan, once so beautiful.

Oh, it was never a good idea to allow himself to dwell on his… On the troublesome Chaos mage, so he forcibly dragged his thoughts to the day ahead and his body to the shower. There, he turned the water up hot; hot enough to scald his skin sunburn-pink, but it didn't warm him up inside, and it didn't make him feel clean. As he soaped his belly and cock, washing away the evidence of his foolish subconscious, all he really felt was terribly, appallingly old.

After dressing, and as usual these days, he turned the radio on to break the crust of silence left from the night. He made himself some tea and toast as he listened to the BBC World Service. The world wasn't getting any kinder; humans were still selfish, sadistic and fundamentally flawed creatures.

Giles believed in original sin. Not, perhaps, in the rather literal definition some Christians employed, but that human beings were born with the potential for 'sin' pre-existent in their faulty genes. Yes, that he felt certain about. Of course, he reminded himself as he always did, they had to be. Were humans born perfect, free will would be meaningless. It was only in creatures capable of great evil that the choosing of good could have significance.

It was a sound and edifying principle that Giles clung to, but on days like today, when all there seemed to be was suffering and hell on earth, he wondered how any benevolent god could possibly allow it to continue. Which was why, of course, he didn't believe in one. Hells and heavens, yes, there were plenty of those. Many hellgods and Powers claiming authority also who would play with humanity like game pieces given half a chance. No unifying principle, though, no gentle all-seeing patriarch. At least, not one that gave a damn about individual human beings. Or about him. Or Buffy.

The name of his Slayer in his mind felt like a whiplash upon his back. Wincing, he turned off the radio. Perhaps he should consider watching mindless morning television with the rest of waking America from now on.

He walked to the shop as always; it wasn't far, and he refused to surrender to the irresponsible culture of the car-dependent Californian. Anya wasn't yet there, so he dealt with the morning's mail in silence while pretending that he didn't see the occasional flashes of Ethan's grin, that expression which on the older man seemed smug and sinister, but on the boy had been exciting, provoking. Neither did he feel the ghost-caress of soft lips across his skin under his clothes, leaving a trail of goose pimples in their wake. Of course he didn't.

The pretence was less than successful. By the time Anya's arrival shattered the church-like still of the shop-before-hours with a jangling bell and a rousing, "Good morning, Giles," he'd been sitting for some minutes staring into nowhere, lost in thoughts of the strange and unlikely Ethan of his dream.

Unlikely even without the Dorian Gray motif. Even when things had been good between them -- those few spare years between Oxford and Eyghon followed by Oxford once more -- Ethan had been a selfish little bastard. Every time, for instance, that Giles had gone down with some lurgy or another, Ethan's reaction had been to tut at the inconvenience and accuse Giles of putting it on. The nurturing presence of the dream had not been remotely authentic.

Of course, one thing Ethan and the dream manifestation _had_ had in common was his skilled mouth. No one, before or since, had ever used their mouth on Giles the way Ethan had. Ethan's tongue had been like a-

"Have you been sniffing the Hargot Powders, Giles?"

Startled, he inhaled sharply. "Er, pardon?"

Anya was staring at him with a slightly perturbed expression. "Or the amulet drawer?"

"Have I been sniffing the amulet drawer?"

"No, stupid. Some of our more expensive trinkets can be used to entrance. You know that."

He rubbed the bridge of his nose under his glasses. "I'm not entranced, Anya."

"Well, pfft. I can see that _now_."

Feeling totally inadequate for the day ahead, Giles nonetheless drew himself to his feet. "It's time to open."

She sighed and huffed. "I just told _you_ that. And also, since you obviously weren't listening at all while you were off in not-entranced land, I told you we're out of those Egyptian love charms that sold so well. The borage and eyebright potions have spoiled overnight because _someone_ put them near the Triblox Philtres. We're due a shipment of terracotta figurines this afternoon from Abraxis that you'll have to sign for since their delivery woman gives me goosebumps, and…" She takes a quick breath. "Last night the Bot got itself broken, and no one's saying how, but I think Spike did it."

Giles blinked at her for a few seconds then headed for the door to lift the blinds, unlock, and turn the sign.

"Well?" Anya demanded.

He turned back to her. "Well what?"

She stared at him wordlessly, arms folded. Then she sighed and walked to behind the counter. Grateful, Giles headed out the back to Bu- To the training room. He carefully didn't look at the weapons or Xander's dummy, heading instead for the desk they'd set up at the back. He sat down and opened up the shop ledgers. With dedication worthy of a Buddhist monk, he turned off all his thinking mind bar the part that processed numbers.


	3. Chapter 3

_"Sin is necessary, but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well."_  
\-- Jesus, as channelled by St Julian of Norwich, 14th century.

A few days later, Giles was inevitably back at the shop, sitting at the table with the remaining 'Scoobies' discussing their after-hours business. There was a new demon in town, one that had added considerably to the Bot's wear and tear before turning stubby little tail into the night. He listened to the young people squabble without really hearing the words; he'd heard it all before. Willow wanted to use dangerous magic, and Dawn wanted to use a sword; neither liked the 'no' he wearily mumbled.

Look at them huddled here around a pile of books as if hoping to gain warmth from them. They were, he suddenly realised, like the infamous headless chicken. The nerve centre had gone, but they were still running around, flapping.

Giles wondered dimly how the children were coping inside, under the crisp shell of normal they plastered on wet every morning. If they indeed did that, maybe it was just him. Did Willow think it should be her body decomposing under the sod of that hidden grave? Buffy was as alone in death as she had been in life, for all that every one of them had struggled to make it otherwise. Could the children forgive themselves her death? Giles himself had no idea where to start.

Did Xander feel it should have been him lying broken on the rubble, a dead hero at twenty? Almost certainly Dawn, by the time of the dimensional rift, had been resigned to becoming one of the grateful dead, wanting it all to be over. And Giles couldn't fool himself; he knew that, by the end, Buffy was seeking death with the same weary enthusiasm that he himself would seek his bed at the end of a long, hard day. She had been twenty years old when she died, and she went to the grave with the willingness of a battle scarred veteran, happy for the ending. Happier still that the ending was necessary, righteous and glorious, the perfect heroic sacrifice.

He should feel glad for her. After all, Slayers died young, all of them, and so very many ignobly. His had died saving not one world but countless. He should feel proud. His laugh fractured the conversation like a brick through the window. The children stared at him wearing varying expressions of incredulity and concern. Far too late he tried to turn the noise into a cough.

Tara, damn her pervasive empathy, reached out and squeezed his arm with a touch both hesitant and warm. Why couldn't she understand that the last thing, the very last thing he wanted was sympathy? He gave her a stiff smile and gently freed his arm.

Xander, who had been mid-spiel at the point of interruption, shook himself and jolted right back into his babble -- a turntable starting to spin again after temporary power loss. "...and if Spike hadn't gone at it with a broadsword, I might have gotten a closer look at the tattoos." He jabbed the nib of his biro down on the table as he spoke, an angry gesture, unconscious perhaps.

Giles stopped his sigh from being heard anywhere but inside his head. "If Spike hadn't 'gone at it with a broadsword' you would be doing no more looking, close or otherwise."

Xander bridled. "That's not true! I had my-"

"Yes, it is, honey," Anya interrupted, earning herself an outraged glare from her boyfriend. "Spike saved your life. I was so grateful I found myself promising unlimited burba weed at cost."

Xander opened his mouth to argue, but Giles raised his hand. "We have, all of us, saved each other's lives repeatedly, and while I'll be the first the admit it's an uneasy alliance, Spike is currently one of 'us'." Whatever that actually meant anymore.

The existence of the single-malt in the small cupboard under the counter felt like an annoying presence at his arm, nagging and tugging. But the children didn't like to see him drinking; it unsettled them. Christ, did he really have to be the father of _all_ of them? Where were their own, for God's sake? Did no one take their parenting responsibilities seriously these days?

Dawn was looking sulkily at Xander. "Why can't you ever be nice to him?" she asked.

Ah, in defence of Spike, of course. "Don't answer!" Giles said hurriedly. "I've heard enough of this particular argument to last me well into the next millennium."

Willow nodded wisely. "Well, to get back to the issue-y thing at hand, with this spell I found we could-"

"Oh, for-" Giles lifted his hand to remove his glasses in order to clean them, aborting the movement mid-gesture as he realised he was looking at them on the table. So he put them on instead then reached for the book closest to him, a log from their warmthless campfire. "Instead of trying to decide on suitable action when we have no idea what _could_ be suitable for this previously unknown threat, may I suggest we get back to the research we are here to do?"

"Uh… well, actually I should be getting home," Willow announced to the obvious surprise of everyone including Tara. Giles strongly suspected Willow was sulking, but she smiled down at Tara. "It's okay, sweetie. You stay here with Dawnie. I have to fix the Bot _again_, and I have way more homework than is good for a not-so-single girl."

Giles looked away as they kissed. It wasn't prudishness, he told himself, nor jealousy. He was just being polite. But inevitably now, his thoughts returned to Ethan, or rather to the strange and somewhat kindly incubus who seemed to have taken up haunting his dreams. Three nights running now had been marked by night-long and strangely restful visions. Cushioned and coloured like a courtesan's boudoir, the dreams were nurturing, easing pain and making him feel… happy to be alive. At least until he woke up with sticky sheets and the prospect of nothing but another empty day ahead. Contentment quickly transformed to guilt at his audacity in forgetting to grieve in his dreams.

Only the days weren't really empty, were they? The Hellmouth still spilled out evil like hot ash from a temperamental crater, and Faith was locked up, and it was better for all their sakes that she stayed that way. He'd spoken to Wesley in LA, and they'd both agreed. So what choice did Giles have? Did any of them really have? They were all in the same broken little boat. Once you knew what was in Sunnydale, how could you in good conscience leave? All they could do was to try to plug the leaks in their boat as they occurred, one after another, in a ridiculous game of Twister. They were running low on fingers with which to fill the holes.

Was it any wonder the heated comfort of his dreams seemed so preferable? Was this what a nervous breakdown felt like? The last one had been a lot less... soothing.

Giles looked up as Dawn and Tara also stood. Apparently, it had been decided by some process of psychic osmosis- Giles would have sworn no actual conversation had taken place -that they were to leave with Willow. Goodbyes were said, and the three girls left the shop, leaving him with Anya and Xander, both of whom were staring rather forlornly at the door.

"Find the demon and we can all go home," he offered. "There really can't be that many creatures covered in oozing purple tattoos." Lord knows, he didn't want to be here either. He got up and walked over to the counter, locating his whisky and the tumbler he kept with it. It tasted like a solution going down. A solution to what didn't seem to matter, he'd make it fit.

Xander was talking to him, apparently. "Hmm, what was that?" he asked the boy.

"You gonna share some of that there Librarian's Solace?" Because, of course, putting on a silly cowboy accent was just what would encourage Giles to consider Xander mature enough to drink spirits.

"I'm not a Librarian." It was futile pointing out Xander's age; he was near as damn it twenty-one anyway, and Giles found the drinking laws here to be all a little silly really. If one could have sex, could marry for God's sake, then one could surely drink. It seemed an infringement of basic human rights to allow one but not the other.

He located a packet of plastic beakers. "Anya?"

"Alcohol rots your liver and destroys brain cells," she said primly, looking at the measure poured for Xander. "I want a larger one than that."

"That's my girl." Xander chuckled with that peculiar mixture of pride and embarrassment that Anya frequently seemed to bring out in him. Giles privately thought that if Xander had more pride in himself, he wouldn't feel so obliged to be with Anya just because she did him the favour of liking him. On the other hand, if Xander became more secure, Anya's outre behaviour would bother him less, and they could become a contented couple. What the hell did Giles know anyway?

It wasn't as if his own relationships, sparse and threadbare things as they were, granted him any kind of wisdom in this area. He'd loved, truly loved, precisely twice. Jenny was dead, and Ethan... ah, Ethan. He was supposedly in Nevada, safely locked away from the world that he'd taken such sadistic pleasure in punishing for the crime of disregarding him.

Oh yes, Giles understood Ethan Rayne's rather simplistic psychology rather too well. Neglected, emotionally starved only child, always different, always on his own, burning with a need so desperate, so starved, that it had been beautiful. Like the ideal of the Romantic Consumptive, burning up slowly from within, Ethan made self-destruction a work of art. He'd needed to be more than just loved; he'd required adoration and constant pandering. Giles had been happy to give both for the sake of symbiosis. He'd had his own needs, and Ethan, for all his fragility and dysfunction, had supplied everything Giles had wanted at that time.

And now Ethan was back, at least in Giles' dreams, and as full of _spes phthisica_ as he'd ever been. This dream-Ethan had a genius of provision; he left no need of Giles' unfilled, no hitherto unrealised ambition unreached. It was all too easy to believe the dreams were a fabrication of his own broken down subconscious, desperately seeking succour, but… Perhaps, Giles thought, an attempt should be made to contact Riley Finn. To find out if certain troublesome ex-lovers were still where they should be. Giles was beginning to wonder if maybe, just maybe, they were not.

Having topped up his own glass, Giles brought the drinks over to the table and sat down. "Right. Messily tattooed demons with a third eye… or something that might be a third eye in their forehead." He rummaged through the pile of books. "Xander, you can take the Elliot's; it's heavily illustrated. Anya, I'll leave you to choose your own volume, but do continue to scan your memories, won't you?"

"I would have told you if I'd seen that kind of demon before," she said reproachfully.

"Of course you would," Giles said patiently, trying to reassure. "But with one thousand years of memories to sort through, perhaps-"

"Giles, I'm not senile!" She glared at him. "I've never seen or heard of a giant Higrothimai Sprite _ever_."

"Higgo-you what now?" Xander stared at her.

"Higrothimai Sprite? They're tiny Asian demons; kind of cute except for the greasy skin condition, which stains terribly. You can't get it out of silk even with a purification spell; we tried. Although I had that one friend who swore blind that the skin secretions had anti-ageing properties. If you trap one in a circle of silver, they have to do your will for a week and a day, but only if you say the right words. If you don't, they do this neat thing with your intestines that-"

"Anyanka!" Giles exclaimed crossly. "Why have you waited until now to tell us this?"

She blinked at him in surprise. "You never said you wanted to know about Higrothimai Sprites."

"Yet you say the demon we are currently investigating is a giant Higrothimai?" He pronounced the word carefully.

"Well, no, because there's no such thing, silly." She was humouring him. "I just meant it looks like one. Only, you know, enormous."

"And you didn't think that was relevant in any way?"

She stared at him. "You didn't say you wanted to know about demons that were _like_ our demon. You said you wanted to know about _our_ demon. Anyway, when I suggested a Pox Demon with a tattoo fetish, you got all British-I'm-more-intelligent-than-you and grouchy with me!"

Giles frowned. "I did not get all… grouchy."

"Yes, you did. Didn't he get grouchy, Xander?" She shook Xander's arm. He raised his hand, fending her off.

"Hey! Leave me out of this one." He looked back at the Elliot's. "So would this be the Hippopotamusi thing?" he asked, indicating a picture he'd found.

"Mm-hmm," Anya agreed. "That's it. Didn't I say it was cute?"

The picture showed a demon that was far from any definition of cute Giles would ever have considered using. It was also identical to the demon who had bothered them the night before, for all that the size given was much smaller. After perusing the description, Giles took of his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "Xander, please locate the bottle of silver nitrate powder from the storage room downstairs. Anya, please look up size restoration spells. Once you have both, I suggest you take them and the Elliot's to Willow." He stood up.

"What are you going to be doing?" Anya asked, somewhat sulkily.

"Me? I'm going home. Where I will be extremely disappointed to hear from any one of you before tomorrow morning."

***

Giles comes through his front door, switches the light on, throws his coat at the hall tree, and pours himself a drink. That's the evening's tasks done with, he thinks, as he slumps down on the sofa. He's not going to bother with food tonight.

"That bad?" a sympathetic voice asks. The sofa moves as someone leans on the back of it, and Giles feels fingers stroking over his hair, soothing.

"Just frustrating," he acknowledges, leaning into the touch. "Sometimes I feel like a not terribly good master at a special school." He cranes his head around to look up at Ethan. "It's good to be home though."

"I missed you," Ethan says; it has the flavour of confession, the simple words seeming profound somehow.

"Missed you too. Come here?" He tries to tug Ethan down to him. His imagination runs ahead like an impatient puppy, and he visualises Ethan spilling into his lap, squirming delightfully.

Ethan chuckles, but declines to take a dive over the sofa back. "Dinner will burn if you get me distracted now."

"There's dinner?" Now that it's been mentioned, Giles can smell something spicy and meaty in the air. His stomach contracts slightly, letting him know that he is, after all, hungry.

"Of course -- Cumberland sausage casserole with mash. There's dessert too."

Giles' stomach gurgles loudly, the sound vibrating up through him and merging with a chuckle. "That sounds quite magnificent. You never used to cook."

"I've learnt. I've learnt quite a few things actually; needs must when Old Nick is drunk at the wheel." They share a smile like a glass of rich red wine. "Now you just relax, and I'll bring it in on a tray."

God, Giles could get used to this, he truly could. Didn't every man, in the end, need a… a wife? Frowning a little, he stands and follows Ethan into the kitchen. Ethan bends and removes a deep Pyrex dish from the oven. He's looks almost painfully erotic in the oven gloves, although Giles can't quite explain why. Or maybe he can. Were Ethan naked bar the gloves, his youthful body, slender but shaped, would be the stuff of gay erotica. The very stuff of which Giles has quite a collection, hidden in a place where the children, he dearly hopes, will never find it. He can't quite allow himself porn, but the pretence of art in those posed photos allows them to slip under the nose of the prude he seems to have become.

Ethan smiles at him and begins to serve the food onto a warmed plate. A whole Cumberland sausage spirals on the cream-coloured china, the various vegetables that it was cooked with surround it. A dollop follows of what looks like perfect British mashed potatoes, the casserole gravy spooned liberally over. Giles feels his body is being torn between hunger and lust, and for a moment, he's hard pressed to see the difference between the two. "Why are you doing this?"

Ethan puts the plate on a circular tray, frowning apparently at the fact that the old Chinese lacquered tray won't sit flat on the counter surface. "Because you need to eat?" he replies with a humorous quirk to his lips before turning to the cutlery drawer.

Giles chuckles as they amble back to the sofa. "I intended a wider context. Why are you looking after me like this?" He sits down and takes the tray from Ethan who then joins him on the sofa, meeting his gaze seriously.

"Because you need me to, dearest. I've never known you so low, so..." Ethan smiles apologetically before saying the word, "broken. I want to make things better for you."

Warmth infuses Giles' body, and he thinks it's not just from the piping hot and chilli-spiced casserole, which is currently having an easy time of seducing his tongue. "You are," he tells Ethan quietly. "So very much better."

Ethan stares at him for a little while, watching him eat. The gaze feels like an embrace, like a cuddle from his Mum back in the days when Giles was very small and still allowed such things. Then Ethan turns and gets up to switch the telly on. Giles knows well enough that it will be pointless asking for the news, and anyway, he's not sure he wants a dose of real life currently. So together they watch ancient American sitcoms. Giles would normally disdain such things, considering them the height of obviousness and designed for lowest common denominator 1950's America, a culture that feels decidedly alien to him. Yet in the flickering flame of Ethan's company, they are somehow hilarious.

Once dessert is finished, they cuddle close, Ethan pressing soft kisses upon Giles every once in a while. Giles releases a heartfelt sigh, only now relaxing fully. After studying him again for some moments, Ethan rises and switches off the television. "Why don't you tell me about your day?" he asks as he sits back down at the furthest end of the long sofa. "Put your head in my lap and let me smooth your furrowed brow."

Giles, docile and warm, obliges, stretching out on the sofa, legs bent, and his head on Ethan's thighs. "Not much to tell really. The shop was quite busy, I suppose." He closes his eyes and tries to think back over his day; it's hazy for some reason, sepia-tinted. He scowls as a particular memory clarifies. "This harridan of a woman tried to return something she hadn't even bought from us. I..." His frown deepens, and he feels Ethan's fingers move over his face in gentle massage. "I'm bored even talking about it, love. You can't truly want to hear about an averagely tiresome day in retail."

Without obvious inflection beyond the question, Ethan asks, "If it's that dull, why do it?"

Giles purses his lips and immediately feels Ethan's fingers there, smoothing. After kissing the tips of them, he says, "The life of leisure was not one I enjoyed."

"But Rupert," Ethan replies, his tone almost cajoling. "A man of your talents, there's so many more appropriate things you could be doing with yourself than gift-wrapping plaster Buddhas for spoilt middle-aged hausfrauen who are dancing with the New Age. Really, there is."

Giles knows Ethan is right, but feels unwilling to admit that out loud. "I can't leave Sunnydale, love," he says instead as if that is refutal enough.

Ethan shifts underneath him. "Why ever not? Truly, I'm not being deliberately obtuse. I don't understand."

Giles tries on various responses for size and ends up throwing them all in the pile for the charity shop. Shrugging awkwardly, he mumbles, "Someone has to keep an eye over the Hellmouth. I can't leave the children alone to fight all the evil flotsam that constantly plagues this town."

He feels Ethan tense at that and wonders why, but it's a momentary straightening and then his lover is pliable and soft beneath his head again, fingers tugging softly in Giles' hair. "Doesn't have to be you, you know," Ethan points out reasonably. "There are corridors and corridors of eager young Watchers in London, many more out in the wild of the real world. All of them would gather around the chance for a posting here, I'm sure."

Giles feels himself wince. "That's not possible, I'm afraid. The Council doesn't know Buffy's dead."

"Oh." Ethan seems a little nonplussed. "Any particular reason why not?"

"There's a very real chance that, were they to find out, they'd assassinate Faith and force the Slayer line to move on to someone more tractable."

"And you care?" Ethan chuckles softly. "What am I saying, of course you care."

Giles feels obliged to explain himself. "Faith..." he pauses, contemplating the wild Slayer, dark eyes full of intensity and not unlike Ethan's; he'd caught himself thinking that occasionally in the days when she'd fought with them rather than against. "Her Watcher believes she should have a chance to reform, and considering what she did to him, who am I to argue?"

Ethan sighs. "Oh Rupert. There's nothing for you here. Really."

He stares up at those dark eyes. "There's you."

"Yes," Ethan agrees, but he looks sad. "For now."

Oh. Giles feels his gut contract unpleasantly and sits up. "Not staying then?"

Ethan shuffles closer, looking concerned. He takes Giles' nearest hand in both of his, massaging the joints with his thumbs. "I was rather hoping we'd leave together."

Giles sips an bittersweet cocktail of relief, yearning, and exasperation. "I can't leave, love. I just told you that. And where would we go anyway?" Memories of their old London bedsit skitter across the dusty floors of his mind. They'd had so much fun together; why the hell had he left? Pressure from his family? What a fool he'd been. He looks down at Ethan's hands, smooth and strong. His own hand seems appallingly aged within them.

Ethan kisses Giles' cheek; the light, lingering touch is like a gift, like an offering. "Let's talk about this another time. It's not helping you relax." He purses his lips in an expression Giles knows well as his lover in thought. "I know," he announces with a sudden, happy grin and stands up.

Giles watches with bemusement as Ethan scampers to the kitchen, returning with six colourful bottles straight from the fridge, carried between his fingers like a bartender would. "What the hell are they?"

"So untrusting, Rupert. What these are is fun bottled." Giles gives him a highly dubious look, and Ethan laughs. "They're a new line of alcopops. You know, tastes like a fizzy fruit drink then kicks you in the balls. Something like that anyway."

If anything, Giles feels his face pull into an even stronger expression of doubt. "Why on earth would I want to drink sugary spirits when I have Laphroaig?"

"Because it's fun." Ethan's faux-coy look enchants Giles, and he watches as a bottle is opened and placed in his hands; a strong smell of lemon hits his nostrils. "C'mon, Ripper. I want to see you smile at least once tonight."

Giles opens his mouth to protest that he has been smiling like a goon since he first felt Ethan's fingers in his hair, but he thinks better of it when he sees the wicked glint of mischief in his lover's eye. Instead, he takes a swig of whatever it is he's holding. To his surprise, it's not sickly sweet. There's sugar there, certainly, but it's offset by the tart strength of the lemon, reminiscent of the old fashioned corner shop lemonade from his youth.

It's only when the ice-cold stuff hits his stomach like a razor thin dagger that he registers the non-taste of vodka underneath. "I can see why these things have the reputation they have," he comments dryly, putting his arm around Ethan and pulling him closer. Not yet close enough. "I could swig back quite a few on a hot day and then find myself unexpectedly plastered."

Ethan opens a pink-labelled bottle for himself and relaxes against Giles' flank. "I like them; they remind me of London." At Giles' perplexed grunt, Ethan explains simply, "Sparkly."

Ah yes, they had been sparkly then. Or least, Ethan had been, and Giles had picked up a fair dusting of glitter in his lover's wake. Ethan had stopped all that after Giles left. It had been a shock when Giles had first seen him after the break up - Ethan so plain and discreet, a bullfinch in wren's drabs.

Now it seems Ethan has found a happier medium - no glitter or obvious cosmetics, but stylish clothes that show off his coltish body to good effect. "Still so pretty," Giles murmurs, stroking Ethan's cheek. "What do you see in this old flesh of mine?"

"You, of course." Ethan tips his head back, and Giles' fingers obediently stroke down the exposed neck. "And that's better than anything else. Pretty much."

Giles chills his lips on his bottle, finishing the drink, before leaning in to kiss that throat, making Ethan shiver delightfully and make an appreciative noise, his Adam's apple dipping as he does so. The noise is soft and evocative, a promise and a keepsake both. Giles pauses only to pry open a new bottle before continuing his explorations, undoing the first two buttons of Ethan's shirt. This -- a bottle in his hand and Ethan smooth and pliant under his touch -- grabs Giles with a whipcord, dragging him back through time at breath-stealing speed to their old threadbare sofa, the smell of dope in the air, and Robert Plant preaching from the loudspeakers. If he closes his eyes, he can almost imagine he is once again that boy, joints supple and uncomplaining, skin sleek as the flesh he's now kissing.

They share cold, sweet alcohol and hot, sweeter kisses for a drawn out while, conversation giving way to a more material pleasure. Ethan is slowly inched down on the sofa, Giles finding himself increasingly above his lover. The kisses last longer and press harder, and there's no doubt at all where this is going. The road is wide and lined with cheering onlookers, and Giles walks it with lust and pride until the vaguest of passing thoughts concerning the smoothness of Ethan's chest slams Giles headlong into a remembrance of the demon he'd sent the others out to deal with on their own.

Suddenly sodden with guilt, Giles sighs and straightens up on the sofa. "I should have gone with them."

Ethan rubs his face, clearly frustrated, although his tone is gentle enough when he speaks. "Who? Your 'children'?"

Giles nods. "We were attacked by a demon last night that I'm confident was a Higrothimai Sprite under an enlargement spell."

Laughing, Ethan sits up. "Oh, the oil must have been prodigious. It's good for your skin, you know."

"So Anya informed me." Giles doesn't move from the sofa, eventually admitting to himself that he wants Ethan to persuade him out of it, which is hardly fair to anyone. Sighing, he makes himself stand. "I should try to find them."

"Sit down," Ethan tugs hard on his hand. "One sprite, no matter how gargantuan, is no challenge for your boys and girls if they know what they're up against. And you know that. You're just looking for things to feel guilty about as you were starting to feel happy."

Giles sits down with a bump, suddenly feeling a lot heavier. "I'm not… am I?" He is though; as usual Ethan's insight is correct. "Oh... bollocks." He sighs wearily. "Do you want to go to bed?"

"Thought you'd never ask." Ethan's lips crinkle in dry amusement, an expression which seems strangely mature on such a young face. He stands and helps Giles up again. "Come on, my dear. Let's get you naked of that hairshirt somewhere warm and comfy. I'll do the washing up in the morning."

Halfway up the stairs, Giles pauses. "Of course, there's the matter of who would enchant a Higrothimai Sprite to twenty times its natural size..."

"Rupert, no more!" Ethan scolds, taking his hand and squeezing it. "Not until morning. Do as you're told for once."

"I'm not a child, you know," Giles says, his sulky tone casting immediate doubt onto the statement. But his worries are starting to feel silly, and they slip away from him like sand through boardwalk cracks. He can't quite bring to mind exactly what was bothering him now, but he knows it wasn't important.

"No, dear one," Ethan says softly, urging him up the stairs. "You're not a child, and I'm sorry to treat you like one. Truly."


	4. Chapter 4

_"When one is overcome by this wretched, clinging desire in the world, one's sorrows increase like grass growing up after a lot of rain."_  
\- Buddha (from the _Dhammapada_)

Giles wakes half-hard to an immediate awareness of Ethan's warm and quietly snoring presence pressed lightly against his side, and he smiles. Waking up happy is an unusual enough event these days for Giles' breath to trip in his throat, staggering noisily out into the room. He feels a fierce gratitude for Ethan's return to his life.

His fingers whisper over Ethan's arm, which lies with reassuring weight over Giles' chest. He chuckles as the arm hair stands to attention at the touch, like a troop of eager soldiers. Ethan has always been very obliging about rising proud to Giles' scrutiny.

And as Giles lies there, smiling at the ceiling, he wonders if Ethan would still enjoy waking up to find Giles in the process of entering him; he used to well enough. The thought alone enlivens Giles' cock, making it twitch and further swell. There should be no need for lubricant after their activities last night; just to make sure, however, Giles spits quietly into his hand and lowers it beneath the covers, squeezing and anticipating.

A little hesitantly perhaps, he pushes Ethan over onto his back, Ethan's topmost arm falling heavily to the mattress and bouncing slightly. As Ethan starts to stir, Giles lifts himself over and manoeuvres his body between the long legs.

"Rupert?" Ethan's eyes aren't even open.

"Yes, love. I want you."

"'M here," Ethan says sleepily, smiling, eyes still shut. But he clearly knows what he's being asked for as his knees bend, his feet moving high up the bed and his legs parting further in a silently sung chorus of 'step inside, love'.

Giles releases a shuddering breath before pushing forwards and down with his hips. He feels the head of his cock slip tantalisingly against Ethan's flesh and tries again, a little lower. Ethan shifts, tilting his pelvis further up. Helpful boy. …Man.

As Giles pushes a little way inside, he feels Ethan's cock twitching between their bodies like a thing apart from them both. Ethan himself wears an almost beatifically peaceful expression, his eyes still shut; he could almost be asleep. Giles moves slowly, stealthily within him, wanting to preserve that calm for as long as he can. Slow-fucking Ethan awake was once one of Giles' favourite pastimes.

He adopts a rhythm so slow and measured it seems almost ceremonial; as strides Black Rod with his robes and staff, so fucks Rupert Giles. Or so he would be if the thought were not making him giggle helplessly, which rather disturbs the stateliness of the occasion.

Ethan's eyes slit open. "What's so funny?"

"I'm contemplating the State Opening of Parliament."

"Really. Well, that's flattering, I must say." Which only makes Giles laugh more, of course. "I'll just go back to sleep until this surreal turn is over, shall I?" The slits shut once more.

"Sorry, love." Giles sheepishly quells his humour, and after kissing Ethan quiescent again, he straightens, lifting and supporting Ethan's legs. Returning to his meditative pace, Giles is now positioned in such a way to make Ethan whimper quietly and tremble. When he goes this slowly, Giles sometimes thinks he can feel every undulation of the hot flesh he has entered.

Gradually, Ethan's head tips back into the pillow. He sighs, drawn out and breathy, as if releasing something long held. "This I have missed almost more than the rest. No one else has ever shown this level of control over themselves."

Giles finds he doesn't want to think of Ethan with other men. He tightens his grip on Ethan's hips, pushing his thumbs in until Ethan squirms uncomfortably.

"What did I say? Oh... Oh, Rupert, there was no one who mattered after you. No one at all."

"Good," Giles replies with sullen satisfaction. His rhythm has grown ragged, so he concentrates on restoring it to metronomic perfection.

Ethan's eyes are open now, and he's staring up at Giles. "I promise you. There's only ever been space for you in my impoverished little heart."

"But not between your legs." Giles hears himself too late and falters again.

Ethan winces and then pouts. "You left. Was I supposed to remain celibate all those years? If so, you forgot to tell me in that terse little note you propped on the dressing table."

Giles stops moving altogether, bows his head like a holy penitent and sags against Ethan's legs. "I'm sorry. I... regret leaving."

"That makes two of us then." Ethan pushes his hips up. "Don't stop."

"Patience," Giles tells him, tone gentle and distracted. "I want to talk about this." But nonetheless, almost against his will, his slow thrusting starts up again. "There was pressure on me from my family, and... something else." He frowns; he knows there was a something else.

"Not yet," Ethan says cryptically, stroking Giles' face. "Call me a coward if you will."

"What?"

"You've stopped again," Ethan points out, another pout threatening like a gathering storm cloud.

"Sorry." This time Giles starts moving faster, giving up on the slow-fuck and feeling guilty for it; Ethan had praised his control. It's a moderate pace that increases his pulse and sets both of them breathing more harshly. This is despite the fact that his thoughts are still distracting him, almost as if his body and brain were entirely separate in this.

He's thinking about how his life could have been, had he stayed with Ethan. No Oxford, presumably, no Council and inherited responsibility, no British Museum and no Sunnydale... no Buffy. No solitary grave. Would she still be alive without him? Or would she have died years ago with a different Watcher to guide her path?

His thoughts hurt, and he takes that out on Ethan, fucking him violently, pinning him down with a bruising grip.

Ethan frowns, wincing, face turned to the side. "Rupert?" he asks as Giles' wild thrusts inch him up the bed, "while this is... quite jolly... I'd much prefer... ah, if it were _me_ you... were impaling so... eagerly."

Cringing, Giles slows again. "God, I'm sorry." What the bloody hell is wrong with him? Control? Huh, that's a sodding laugh. He has none at all, apparently. "Talk to me, Ethan? Stop me thinking about what went wrong and could have beens."

"It's too early for such thoughts, my dear," Ethan soothes, stroking his hands all the way up Giles' arms as far as he can reach in this position. "You have to let this all go for now. Be in the moment as they say."

Giles grunts as Ethan clenches his arse muscles around him. "This moment?"

"Yes, and this one." Another tightening, and there's a small gasp from both of them as Giles thrusts through the grip.

"Talk." Giles takes one of Ethan's hands and puts it on Ethan's cock. "And touch. You know what I like."

He watches fingers curl around the slightly softening cock, watches it harden again, become shiny and glistening at the head. Ethan's breath grows noisy as he squeezes himself, then starts to rub. Voyeur and exhibitionist, dominant and submissive, oppressor and willing victim -- their partnership always was exquisitely well balanced.

"Talk," Giles again instructs.

Eyes closed, Ethan starts a feverish babble. "I remember. I remember what you like, my dear. You like me to say what it feels like, don't you. You are burning and heavy inside me, Rupert. Attention seeking -- dragging all my awareness to my arse to witness your invasion. God, you feel sodding good. It's where you belong, you know. I'm the missing jigsaw piece you were made to slot into. Christ... oh Christ, Ripper, that's good, my friend. My love. Oh... oh yes..."

Giles hears the words, but pays them little attention. It's the cadence broken by ragged gasps and the increasingly guttural resonance of his lover's voice that inspires him on.

Ethan's neck is arched, his hand working furiously and eyes tight shut. "Hurt me, Ripper," he says. "Feed my hunger. Fuck me and hurt me. Make me matter. Make this real."

Giles is losing his rhythm now in the _right_ sort of way because pressure, delicious and inexorable, is building within his loins, and it won't be long. He could come now with just a slightly harder thrust or two and even without... "God, Ethan!"

Ethan is turning his resolutely blind face from side to side, his breath a ragged pant, and his grip upon himself is tight and violent. "Do it! Do it, Ripper!"

Fuck. Giles knows what Ethan wants all right, but he won't give it to him. Not now. He understands the risks of that particular kink too well these days, for all that his fingers twitch and curl at the remembrance of simulated murder. That isn't him anymore.

Instead, he leans against Ethan's legs and slides his hands up the smooth skin of his lover's chest, tweaking and twisting the nipples very hard when he reaches them and laughing roughly when Ethan yelps and squirms. He then slowly drags his trimmed nails down, over ribs and belly, raising wheals like whiplashes as he goes, blemishing the pure. Ethan wails and thrashes below him, clearly a matter of seconds from orgasm...

Then the phone starts to ring.

As Giles freezes in surprise, Ethan more or less shouts, "No!" He grasps at Giles' hands, trying to make them resume their torture. "If you answer that, Ripper, God help me, I'll do for you."

Giles tries to ignore the beseeching electronic tone. He tries so very hard. When the noise stops he almost sags in relief. But then it starts again.

"Sorry. So sorry," he mumbles. "It could be urgent." He pulls out and rolls to the side, catching a painful glimpse of Ethan's furious, and yes, hurt expression despite trying not to look. Cringing, he leans for the phone.

***

"What the bloody hell is it?"

"Giles?"

"Yes..." He breathed in heavily, trying to summon up some patience. "Anya. What can I do for you?"

"Uh, is it your day off today? Because if it is, you forgot to put it on the wall planner, and how am I supposed to know not to make appointments for you with sales representatives I don't like if you don't put it on the wall-planner? And I suppose you're going to claim now that you did tell me, but you didn't because I remember everything you say to me, whereas you are currently Mr-not-paying-attention all the time, and anyway, wall-planner! Not only that, but you have to be here because there was another new demon last night, and Willow says-"

Halfway through the monologue, Giles turned to Ethan, an apologetic expression at the ready. Only of course Ethan wasn't there. Ethan was a dream that Giles had been woken from by Anya's call.

But there had been no experience of waking, no sudden re-awareness of reality. He had slipped between the two states of consciousness unaware. The realisation made him shiver. It made him want Ethan back in his bed with an emotion sharp and piquant enough to be something approaching despair.

"Giles? Giles, are you listening to me at all?"

"Yes, Anya. I'm sorry. There's a new demon, you say."

She sighed loudly. "Okay, okay, we'll talk about the demon first, but don't think I'm letting you get away with avoiding the issue of the Dead Man's Fingers."

What issue of the- Never mind. "Do we know what kind of demon it was?"

"An -" She made a startling and unrepeatable noise.

Giles sighed, rubbing his eyes with his free hand. "And in English?"

"Oh, a Lesser Wittergessan. They're like kind of humanoid donkeys. According to an old friend of mine, they are donkey-like in more than-"

"Yes, yes," he said hurriedly. "I know what Wittergessans are." Of course he knew; sometimes Anya was really quite impolite in her assumptions. "Wittergessans of any variety are normally particularly peaceful herbivores. What was this one doing to cause trouble?"

"It wasn't. Well, other than turning up just as we were going home, which was trouble enough if you ask me. Xander had just suggested to me in a whisper that we-"

"I don't understand."

"Well, that would be because you never let me finish a sentence. It's very rude of you, Giles. Xander would never let me get away with rudeness like that. But because you're _you_ \-- you know, all British and old and Mr Big Authority -- you get to say whatever you like. I mean, more than half the time these days you're not even listening at all."

"I'm very sorry, Anya," Giles said wearily. "Please tell me the story of the Wittergessan demon. I promise I will listen avidly to every word and that I won't interrupt."

"Okay. Johnny was all upset because-"

"Who's Johnny?"

There was an exaggerated sigh at the other end of the line. "Johnny is the Wittergessan."

"You know him?"

"No. Well, yes, I do now. But I didn't. And that promise lasted less than five seconds. I was timing." Giles remained what he hoped was wisely silent as Anya paused. Thankfully she went on. "As I was saying, he was very upset. Crying. And listening to a donkey cry is not at all pleasant, let me tell you. They get very loud. Xander said-"

Giles coughed. Quietly. It wasn't really an interruption, just a reminder.

"_What_?" Apparently Anya didn't understand the subtle gesture.

"Why was the Witt- Why was Johnny upset, Anya?"

"Oh, because of his stalker. This woman... well, girl. She's the prom queen from Dawn's school or something like that. Anyway, she was stalking him, and he was scared. They're big babies, really, his kind. At first the others didn't know why a human woman would ever want to stalk _him_, but then I told them what my friend had said about Wittergessans, and Johnny said it was true and that human stalkers were something that sometimes happened to his people and that once his uncle had been kidnapped by this guy making pornog-"

Giles tried the cough once more as he pinched the bridge of his nose. He didn't want to be listening to this. He wanted, quite frankly, to be back inside Ethan's arse.

Anya sighed again and her tone, if anything, became more exasperated. "Well, Spike caught the girl, and we talked to her, and I quickly worked out she was under a love charm since it was _so _obvious. Then Willow removed it, and the girl went home, a bit shaken up and stuff but okay. But what I want to know is - who puts a love charm on a prom queen to make her fall in love with a donkey demon?"

Obviously someone who knew their Shakespeare, had few if any ethics, and a dubious sense of humour. Now who did that description fit? Giles rolled his eyes. Not even he could be this willingly stupid. "Yes, who indeed. Well, thank you for letting me know, Anya. We should all look into the matter of course. Was there anything else, or can I be getting back to bed? I'm afraid I'm rather ill, you see."

"What's wrong with you?" she asked suspiciously.

"I have an exposition of sleep come upon me," he muttered, but cut off her confused reply with, "It's just a touch of flu."

"Oh. Oh, well, you better stay away from me in that case. I don't want the flu again. I had that last year and-" She actually cut herself off before Giles felt compelled to. "You should get plenty of fluids and rest."

"Quite. So I can get back to sleep now, can I?"

"Oh yes. Of course. You do that, and, uh, take care of yourself! Oh, and take something for that cough." She hung up without waiting for a reply.

Giles put the receiver back on the phone base and slumped back into the pillows. It was gone ten, and he really should be rising, being as he didn't actually have flu. But he hadn't finished fucking Ethan yet.

Ethan.

Oh no, Giles wasn't stupid, much though he almost wished he were. It didn't take a great deal of analysis or insight to put the dreams together with the two odd demonic occurrences and come up with a certain Chaos mage as contender number one. He was approaching certain that the dreams were more than just his subconscious providing wish-fulfilment as he descended into mental illness. Later on, he would give it all a comprehensive thinking about. But not now.

Now he was tired and horny, and somewhere in these pillows if he nuzzled deep enough into them, he could find his lost youth and bugger it up the arse until he felt better...

_Lovers, to bed; 'tis almost fairy time._

***

"So what did she want this time?" Ethan asks sourly, clearly sulking. He is stretched out, louche and languid on the sheets.

Giles smiles sardonically down at him. "Oh, my Oberon, what visions have I seen. Methought I was enamoured of an ass."

Ethan's pout crossbreeds with a deep frown. "Some reason you're quoting offensive Shakespeare at me?"

Chuckling, Giles pulls Ethan to him. "Not you, love. Someone enchanted a prom queen to fall in love with a Wittergessan demon."

"Oh." He doesn't seem either particularly interested or mollified. "And that was important enough to interrupt important shagging?"

"No, it really wasn't." Giles runs his fingers down the hairless chest, lust quickly returning to his mind and loins. "I shall have to find that bad enchanter and spank him, shall I not?" Ethan's eyes narrow and his hand rises toward Giles' face, but Giles catches it, and then the other. "I think I want these above your head for now."

Ethan stares silently, uneasily, but lets Giles lift his wrists and cross them above his head on the pillow. "You could tie them," he suggests quietly, his love of kink apparantly sufficient to overcome his qualms.

"I could," Giles agrees. "But that would mean getting out of bed and looking for something appropriate."

"Time was, we used to keep such things in the bedside drawer," Ethan reminisces with a faint smile. "You could always just check and see."

Giles laughs. "You never could pull off innocence very well, love." He reaches over to the top drawer of the bedside unit and opens it. There, lo and behold, are two of his strong leather belts, curled up like quiescent snakes. "Well, that is convenient, isn't it?"

"Handy," Ethan agrees with a smirk.

"My wish is your pre-emptively obeyed command?"

"Perhaps it's _my_ wish," Ethan says, frowning a little at Giles again. "I hid them in there last night."

"Of course," Giles accepts, not caring about the lie. This is all a lie, after all. A glorious, hyper-real falsehood that shines so resplendent that it casts a dimming shadow over everything supposedly actual and important. "I've missed you so very much, Ethan."

As Ethan squirms a little in pleasure at the comment, Giles takes the belts from the drawer. With a practised ease that really should be a lot rustier, he binds Ethan's wrists with one and then uses the other to attach the knot of leather to the bed-head. Ethan tugs on his hands and then grins, clearly delighted. "Day's looking up," he comments.

"It is rather." Giles bends to kiss him, alternating between a touch so delicate that Ethan has to strain his head up trying for a deeper contact, and one brutally hard and rapacious. Pulling back after a while of this, Giles looks lustfully down at Ethan's panting mouth, which now has the look of smudged lipstick, the edges blurred by bruising.

Such a beautiful mouth; it's tempting to fuck it.

But something stubborn inside Giles is determined to finish what he started. "Open your legs," he says gruffly and moves inside them when Ethan obeys. Kneeling upright, he looks down at the boy-man, his cherubic incubus, and pushes Ethan's legs further up and apart for a better view.

Ethan curls his swollen lips into a smile. "It's all yours, my dear Ripper. Your playground."

"That what you are?" he asks distractedly as he runs a finger over Ethan's balls and down further. "That what all this is? An Arcadia for me? A wonderland?" He presses two fingers inside.

Ethan gives him a concerned look, wincing rather than gasping pleasurably at the invasion of his body, his hands tugging at the bonds. "This is real, Rupert," he says seriously. "This is the realest it's ever been between us."

Giles flicks him a quick appraising look. That had seemed to have the clarion peal of truth about it. "Is it? That's interesting. You gonna tell me why then?" He adds a third finger.

"Untie me?" Ethan asks. A little desperately, Giles thinks, and wonders at that. Can't Ethan make the belts disappear as easily as they materialised?

He fucks him with his fingers for a few moments, but Ethan is tense and fretful, and that's no fun at all. "Thought you wanted to be shagged?" Giles asks, withdrawing his hand. He smiles gently up at Ethan. "You need to relax."

"Ripper," Ethan starts, but leaves it unfinished.

"You look scared, love." Giles lays himself over Ethan so that their faces are aligned once again. "Want me to hold your hand?

That drags a dry chuckle from Ethan. "Actually..."

"If it'll make you feel better," Giles says, his London drawl kindly. He strokes his open palm up Ethan's arm to where his wrists are bound. Slowly and deliberately, he places his hand into one of Ethan's and smiles. "Well, go on then."


	5. Chapter 5

_"Let me hide in You from everything that distracts me from You, from everything that comes in my way when I want to run to You."_  
\- RabiÂ´a al-Adawiyya, 800AD approx.

"Jesus, Ripper!" Ethan is rigid under him, back convex as his hips thrust up. "Christ!" Then there's a wet spatter across Ethan's chest, and Giles' hand is sticky and cooling.

Giles himself makes no noise as he comes, letting Ethan vocalise for both of them, but he feels it, feels the swearing and staggered exclamations as he loses control of his body to the iron grip of autonomic reflex and the genetic doggie treat of brief physical ecstasy.

When it's all over bar the shuddering, he pulls out with a grunt and a wince, and rolls to the side. He lies there, shell-shocked, grinning stupidly.

After a while, Ethan giggles. "Well, that was a good one."

"One to remember, certainly."

"Better than boring old breakfast."

"Yeah," Giles says, drawing the word out, and he chuckles himself as he hears the assumed accent of his wild youth in his voice. That's happening all the time now Ethan's back. "Though I wouldn't say no."

"Bacon and eggs?"

"We got 'em in?"

"Stocked up yesterday. I suppose you think you deserve breakfast in bed, being an invalid."

Giles screws his face up in confusion. "Inval- oh." Ethan's referring to the lie Giles had told Anya yesterday, a lie still in effect presumably as he's clearly not going in to the shop today either. A flicker of guilt scorches the edges of his conscience. He blows away the ashes. There, good as new. "Well, I did just indulge in rather strenuous activity."

The bedsprings grumble as Ethan moves suddenly, propping himself up on an elbow to look down at Giles. His smile is very warm, like beams of bright sunlight through a windowpane. "Leave Sunnydale with me and I'll make you brekkie in bed every morning, a full dinner each evening. You'll have my mouth or arse whenever you want them. Think about it, Rupert. Never alone again."

He is. He's thinking about it quite vividly. "I still don't understand," Giles says slowly. He knows they've discussed this already, but can't for the life of him remember quite what was said. "Why can't you stay here?"

Ethan sighs softly then nods as if deciding something. "I can't stay in America, and especially Sunnydale, unless you want to take on a platoon of GI Joe types on my behalf."

"What on earth..." There's a flash of something like memory, like those incongruous recalls of a few days ago. That same man, Giles' age or a little older, hands bound behind his back, a soldier pulling him by his arm. Giles shakes his head, dog like, not wanting the inapposite image. "Ethan, what have you done that's got the American military after you?"

Ethan's smile seems sad as he strokes Giles' face. "That doesn't matter. Don't think about it. All you need to know is that I'm in increasing danger the longer I stay."

Giles blinks then clenches his eyes shut for a couple of seconds while he rubs at the bridge of his nose. Ethan's soothing tone and caresses are threatening to send him back to sleep. "Home to England then?" he asks a little groggily. Then he remembers his duty with a heavy, sinking sourness. "I can't... they need me here."

Ethan tuts and kisses Giles on the forehead. "England could be fun, but I have another proposal."

"What is it?"

Giles is given an appraising look and clearly doesn't pass muster. "I don't want to jinx it by talking about it until I'm certain it's a possibility," Ethan tells him. "Patience, my dear. Now... bacon and eggs? Perhaps a smidgen of fried bread?"

Giles feels himself relax; it's not as if he has to make any decision right now beyond the gastronomic. "Yeah. And coffee, I think."

"Coming right up. You just sit comfy and wait for me."

***

When Giles woke up again, he knew Ethan was not in the house, knew he was no longer dreaming. Because while he was with his dream lover, there was a warm glow like a red filter over everything. The cold light of day, however, was blue-toned and flattening, like old filmstock. Red was always the first colour to fade.

So, he asked himself as he took his exceedingly sticky body to the bathroom, _was_ he going mad? If so, this lunacy was better than any drug or magic-induced euphoria he'd previously known. Except, of course, it _was_ magic. He was pretty much convinced of that by now.

It was strange, he thought cynically, that he seemed unable to remember certain very important facts from his past when dreaming: Eyghon, Ethan being a prisoner of the Initiative, the simple fact that Ethan _had_ aged from the urchin beauty he'd once been. Even now that Giles was going into the dreams with his mind aware, at least initially, it was difficult to keep those facts in focus. He rather suspected that was because he didn't really want to.

Of course, by the end of every dream, he'd been made to forget it all, but as lambs to the slaughter went, he was pretty much skipping to that stone altar and kissing the bloodied blade of the axe.

He looked at the bathroom clock - early afternoon and far too late to go into the shop, even if he could face the others, which he wasn't at all sure he could. There were bound to be questions he'd have no desire at all to answer. But there were other chores and errands he should be dealing with, including, for example, consuming some real food. Ethan's dream meals, like fairy food in the stories, tasted wonderful and nourished nothing.

He shook himself as his eyes closed briefly, knowing that part of him was trying to get back to the dreams. His house felt grave-cold and sterile, and he missed Ethan's presence like he missed his own youth: fiercely, frustratingly, and with far too much to convince him that he really shouldn't. With a sigh like a cemetery breeze, he got into the shower.

Two hours later, a substantial meal inside of his belly thanks to an all-you-can-eat special at the Duckland Diner, Giles was standing outside a familiar crypt door, brown paper bags filled with bribes in his hands. He hesitated, not questioning his decision to come here, just preparing himself. Then, loins duly girded, he rapped sharply on the wood.

After a few moments, a slit of darkness appeared between the edge of the door and the doorframe, and Spike's white-yellow hair loomed forward from the murk. He peered suspiciously into the sunlight at Giles. "Since when've you lot started knocking?"

"Since you started to act worthy of that much respect? May I come in, Spike? I have a business proposition."

Spike gave him an exasperated look then disappeared back inside, leaving the door slightly ajar. Giles waited until the vampire would be out of the direct sunlight before opening the door enough to enter and shutting it behind him.

It was true, Giles thought as he stepped down into the crypt, what he had told Xander the other day. Spike was, to a degree, now a part of their ragtag band of heroes. Through a process of sacrifice and heartbreak, Spike had served a strange apprenticeship and was now deserving of a certain amount of respect, and yes, trust.

Trust enough to leave him alone with Dawn, for instance, knowing that not only would Dawn be safe from him but also with him. He'd protect her with his life in the name of her sister.

Giles had seen Spike immediately after Buffy's death, had seen the tears that Giles wouldn't allow himself to cry mixing with the blood on Spike's face, the vampire expressing the horror and loss that Giles could not. Spike had loved Buffy; perhaps not as purely but definitely as deeply as Giles had. That much was as obvious as it was inexplicable. And now? Giles was unsure how Spike was coping and found he really didn't want to know.

Spike slumped down into his ragged armchair; he waved a hand at the table under the window as if inviting Giles to take a seat. If so, Giles declined, choosing instead to lean against the edge of the sarcophagus. "I have blood, whisky and cigarettes here," he said, putting the bags down on the quilted satin cover. "They're yours, whether you agree to help or not."

"Nice of you, 'm sure," Spike said, grudgingly grateful it seemed. "So, you'll be wanting me to find that Rayne bloke for you again." Giles stared at him, mouth open, and the bloody annoying git of a vampire laughed at him. "Heard he was back in town, see."

"He is? Ethan really is here?" Giles pushed forward, bending into Spike's personal space, a feeling of urgency grasping him. "Ethan's in Sunnydale?"

"Well, someone who fits his description is. Git can't keep away, can he? Must be something here he can't get enough of." Spike's look was cheeky and insinuating, but Giles needed information too badly to take offence.

"Where? Where do they say he's hiding out?"

"Dunno, but might be able to find out." Spike stood and sauntered to the bags Giles had brought. A knife appeared in his hand, apparently from his backpocket, and he cut through the paper wrapping around a carton of cigarette packs. "Demon types don't talk to me like they used to, but if I hit the right heads together, maybe I can get what you need."

That wasn't good enough. "Spike, this is very important. Just tell me what you need as... an incentive."

Annoyance flickered over Spike's features, wisps of cloud over the moon on a windy night, but then he just shrugged and lit his cigarette. "Said I'd do it already. You can get me more of this stuff or not. Still do it."

Giles felt his eyes narrow in suspicion. "Why?"

Clearly affronted, Spike glared at him. "You so choosy about all your bloody gift horses?"

"No. Yes. Well, I am when I've reason to be." Giles scrubbed at his face. "I just don't understand why you'd want to help."

"Don't you?" When Giles looked up it was to find Spike studying him, head tipped to the side. In a strange quiet voice, half-amused, half... something unidentifiable, Spike murmured, "Well, it's almost like you're my father-in-law, innit?"

Giles shuddered, hit by the memory of Willow's very unwise spell after Oz had left, and by the complete inappropriateness of Spike as any kind of relative of his. But Spike was right, of course, about gift horses. "No one else must know. About Ethan." As Spike's small smile broadened into a knowing smirk, Giles hurriedly added, "About Ethan being in Sunnydale."

Spike exhaled long streams of smoke through his nostrils. "Right. I'll keep that one shut tight in the closet then."

Giles sighed, deciding to ignore the bait. "Come to me as soon as you discover anything. You, um, may have to knock loudly. But don't give up."

"Suppose I'd better knock, seeing as you're all into respect now. I'll find out what I can, mate. Don't get your Watcher-issue panties all knotted. Anya tells me you've got yourself a dose of flu, and you _are_ looking a bit peaky like. The pale and unshaven look doesn't suit, 'fraid to say."

Frowning slightly, Giles dragged his hand over his chin. He could've sworn he'd run a razor over his face this morning. Oh, but maybe that had been in the dream. He was not at all sure that his recall of the minutia could reliably distinguish between the two realities anymore. The finger he'd just run under his nose seemed to smell of Ethan's hair, but it couldn't, could it?

He jumped slightly as he felt a gentle hand on his arm. Spike. It was Spike. "You all right there, Rupes? Looking a bit shaky for a sec or so." He dropped his cigarette stub to the dusty floor and twisted his foot on it.

Giles nodded, hurriedly moving away from Spike, suddenly fearing what on earth the vampire would be able to smell on his skin. "Just a bit under the weather. As Anya said."

"You gonna get home all right on your own?" God help him, Spike sounded genuinely concerned.

"Yes. Yes, I'm fine." Giles headed for the steps, keen to get out of the crypt. Yet he paused at the door, looking around the cobwebs and masonry. "How do you stand it? Living in a place like this?"

Spike seemed to understand the deeper question. "'S what I am, innit? Dead? Where else do the dead live? Charnel houses, abandoned buildings, that's our lot. Places that dream of the living."

"Dream of the living..." Giles echoed quietly. "Is that what you do, Spike?"

Spike shifted and turned his back on Giles to light another cigarette. He blew out a stream of smoke; Giles saw it rise from beyond the bleached head like creeping mist on the fens. "She was more alive than any of us, Rupert. You know that."

Ridiculously grateful for the turned back, Giles swallowed down his reaction to Spike's words. Home now. Yes, home. Home to his beloved incubus and the warmth and comfort Ethan allowed him. In Giles' dreams, his house didn't feel like a crypt; in his dreams, Giles felt alive. "Thank you for doing this," he murmured softly before opening the door and stepping out into the sunlight.

The drive home was uneventful, despite Giles' momentary concerns about falling asleep at the wheel. So far he hadn't slept anywhere but at home. He suspected Ethan had managed to get a focal object into his apartment somehow, although he had no idea what or how. He should look really.

He'd rather dream.

Oh, the gross irresponsibility not to mention suicidal potential in that admission really should have frightened him a lot more than it did. Tomorrow, he promised himself as he parked the car. Tomorrow Spike would bring him news of Ethan's real world location, and Giles would go and confront the pillock with whatever he was up to this time, which was likely, now that Giles came to think about it, to be something that required him to be deeply distracted.

Ethan could notch up that one as a success then.

He turned the engine off and sat still for a while, trying to think things through. He wasn't so much seeing through a glass darkly as refusing to open his eyes. The world looked a lot friendlier from the inside of his lids.

Right. Thinking.

Ethan was, it seemed, in Sunnydale and not in a Nevada prison cell. Which meant that the dreams were his doing, unarguably. Ethan's purpose in Sunnydale was usually either to make Giles' life less easy or to bring more Chaos to the Hellmouth. Or both. Were the dreams a distraction or an end in themselves? If the dreams were Ethan's purpose here, then the enchanted demons were, as Giles suspected, the distraction -- not for him, but for the children.

And if the dreams were the purpose, there'd be a punchline; that much was certain. And one Giles wouldn't like at all, most likely. It was therefore vital he gave Ethan no clue -- no further clue -- that he suspected Ethan's game, or else the punchline would be rushed forward. He had to go inside, let Ethan welcome him into the dreamworld and behave as if... as if he wanted to be there. Which wasn't all that much of a challenge really.

Having convinced himself that doing what he most wanted to do was actually what he should be doing, Giles finally left his car and headed into the apartment complex. As he walked down the steps into his shared courtyard, his cock was already hardening in his trousers in guilty anticipation. He was rummaging in his pocket for his key when he saw the two girls sitting on the bench waiting for him. Bugger.

Ardour extinguished, he forced a weak smile onto his face. "Willow, Tara. What are you doing here? Is everything all right?"

The two girls walked over to him, both smiling a little nervously. Willow nodded. "Uh, everything's fine. We came to see if you were okay, since you've been all not-at-the-shoppy, and Anya said you were sick."

"We brought you some fruit," Tara said, holding up a grocery bag.

"Grapes," Willow put in brightly. "And apples. And oh! Oranges. Those big navel ones the size of, um... big oranges?"

"Thank you." Giles smiled as he took the bag, genuinely touched. "That's very kind of you."

"So, uh, how are you?" Willow asked.

He hated lying to them. "I was just experimenting with some fresh air."

Willow nodded eagerly. "Did it work? I mean, are you feeling better? You look, uh, well... you're standing up, at least. That's got to be good."

"You should sit down," Tara said worriedly, turning to check with her girlfriend. "Shouldn't he sit down?"

"I'll sit down as soon as I get inside," he reassured. He had no intention of inviting them in; the idea of falling headfirst into an undoubtedly heavily erotic dream while they were present was a little terrifying. "Is everything else okay? There's been some interesting demon activity, I understand. You've had to work a couple of disenchantments. Any problems with the magic?"

"Nope." Willow shook her head. "They were both easy peasy, could do it with my eyes closed style magic. No need to worry."

He frowned a little. "You can never afford to be casual about magic, Willow, no matter how simple the spell may seem. That's when accidents happen and people get-" he stopped himself before saying 'struck blind', but the hurt expression in the girl's eyes showed she'd heard the words anyway.

Tara put a concerned hand on Willow's back. "We're not. I mean, we wouldn't take risks with magic, Giles," she said earnestly. "We're always very careful."

"I'm so not casual-girl," Willow said, her tone still upbeat, but there was something wary about her eyes now. "I'm the opposite of casual. I'm... formal, and, uh, persnickety!"

"Yes. Yes, of course you are. My apologies." Giles shifted the bag of fruit and sorted out his keys, getting the right one ready. "I'm really not feeling quite myself. Perhaps if I could..." He gestured towards his front door with his free hand.

"Would you like us to come in and make you something?" Tara offered. "We could maybe cook..."

There was, Giles noticed, no enthusiastic agreement from Willow. She looked almost as keen to leave now as he was for them to go. "No," he declined. "Thank you for offering, but I really just want to take a painkiller and go straight to bed. Thank you for the, um, fruit. Navel oranges, you say? I'm sure I'll enjoy them. Later. After I've slept."

"Well, you just go do that sleep thing," Willow encouraged, tugging slightly at Tara's arm. "Sleep is of the good. Yay, sleep."

Tara looked uncertainly between the two of them. "Are you sure there's nothing..."

"I'm fine," Giles told her firmly. "Or I will be. It takes a few days to get over a bug like this. I'll be back at the shop by the end of the week, I'm sure. In the meantime, I'm equally sure you and the others can handle things. Although of course you must let me know if anything more serious than strangely enchanted demons crops up."

The two girls nodded and babbled goodbyes, and Giles watched Willow almost drag Tara from the courtyard. She was getting a little over-sensitive about her magic, he thought. Willow was a more than competent witch, and he didn't want her thinking that he didn't trust her. Once this thing with Ethan was resolved one way or another, he'd have to make time to have a little chat with her.

Ethan.

With a feeling close to the excitement he'd once felt before a big ritual, Giles slotted his key into the door.

***

As Giles walks into his apartment, Ethan is emerging from the small corridor that leads to the bathroom. Giles is painfully happy to see him and feels himself beaming dotingly.

Ethan looks equally pleased. "You're back. I was beginning to wonder if you'd left Sunnydale without me."

"I got waylaid," Giles admits. "The children are starting to get concerned about me."

"Clearly they're not being kept busy enough," Ethan mutters.

"Don't hurt them, love. There's no need." Giles' voice is calm, pleasant, and so much for not giving his incubus a clue he'd been found out. Ethan frowns and starts to walk forward. "No," Giles forbids, and it's definitively a command. Seeing Ethan in front of his desk has inspired him. He can feel a wolfish smile on his lips. "Stay there."

Ethan's frown deepens, although he obeys. "Should I be worried?"

"Oh, I doubt it. I doubt it very much. Take off your trousers and underwear."

Pausing, Ethan's mouth forms a moue, but then he shrugs and puts his hands to his belt. Giles watches with interest as Ethan slides off first the loose trousers and then the snug-fitting cotton briefs beneath. Then he stands a few feet in front of Giles in his open jacket, shirttails and socks, hardening cock twitching just into view between the shirt edges. He also wears a small, amused smile as he watches Giles watch him.

Their eyes meet in something approaching complicit understanding. Giles keeps his arousal from his voice as he says, "Carefully clear my desk and bend over it."

"It's not a very sturdy affair," Ethan points out as he does what he's been told, picking up various papers and objet d'art and putting them on the shelves behind the sofa.

"It'll do for what I have in mind."

Ethan leans over the cleared surface, clasping his fingers around the far edge and leaning on his forearms. His height is such that the position forces his rear higher than the rest of his body and the shirt and jacket fall up his back to reveal smooth buttocks in all their trim glory.

Giles walks forward, stands behind Ethan and bites back a moan at the sight. "Your arse, love, may just about be one of the wonders of the natural world." He grabs a cheek in each hand and squeezes.

"Most gratifying," Ethan chuckles, a little muffled, his concerns apparently forgotten.

After kicking Ethan's feet further apart so that he can see everything he wants to, Giles then runs a finger down between the cheeks and chuckles himself as he watches Ethan's muscles there contract at the touch. "In a little while, I'm going to shag you senseless," he says conversationally.

"I'm happy to hear it. That suggests, however, a delay of some sort before it occurs."

It is so very tempting to forget his initial inspiration and just fill that eager hole with his equally eager erection. But no. This might, Giles rationalises, be the last time he ever gets to do this, and although he doesn't really believe that, still, best to make the most of it. For both of them.

He moves to the side of Ethan and raises his hand, bringing it down hard and flat on the unprotected arse. Ethan yelps. "Have I been bad?"

"Isn't that rather like asking if the sky is blue and do demons flock to the Hellmouth?" Giles asks, feeling the slight sting in his palm and smiling. "I'm not punishing you, love. Far from it. If you don't want this, we can always watch the telly."

Ethan's body trembles as he chuckles. "I think not."

Giles privately agrees, and he brings his hand down again, twice. The sound is unexpectedly loud in the room. The open plan apartment does, of course, offer wonderful acoustics in the real world when Giles plays his guitar, so perhaps he shouldn't be surprised.

Ethan's buttocks are reddening nicely already as Giles continues to spank him. The firm flesh ripples under the blows and then again as Ethan reacts with small gasps or grunts to each one.

"How does it feel?" Giles asks, curious, as he pauses to press between the cheeks again, just teasing the skin there with his fingers, not entering. "Had enough?"

"Oh, I think I've been a lot more naughty than that," Ethan claims blithely.

"Really? Anything you care to confess to?" Giles brings his hand down a few more times, spreading around the impact points to ensure an even rosy glow. He's interested to hear Ethan's answer.

"I'm not one for confession, you know that." Ethan pauses to grunt and jerk in response to a particularly sharp slap. "Why don't you get in some pre-emptive chastising as an investment against future sins?"

Laughing, Giles says agreeably, "All right," and rains down a long series of smacks which leave his hand burning fiercely and Ethan biting into his own sleeve. Pausing to review his handiwork, Giles sees that Ethan's arse is now a satisfying blotchy scarlet, and dear God, Giles wants to see his cock moving between those two hot cheeks.

Giles realises suddenly that he has no lubrication with him. This is positively irritating as he doesn't want to interrupt anything. He starts to attempt to think of a tactful way to ask Ethan to 'make' some the way he did the belts a few nights ago, when a thought occurs. Concentrating for a few moments, Giles visualises a tube within the desk drawer.

Pulling that drawer open, he isn't completely surprised to see the exact make of lube he was imagining lying just on top of the papers there. He giggles. "Modern convenience is quite something."

Ethan cranes his head around. "You keep KY Jelly in your desk drawer?"

"Hid it there last night," Giles states and snorts with laughter again. He's feeling a little... drunk? Did he have some whisky before the dream took him? He can't for the life of him remember. Ethan frowns as he turns back to face front, so Giles spanks him hard until he's sure the frown has gone, and Ethan is writhing, trying to get away from his relentless hand.

"Want something else now?" Giles asks, massaging the sore skin as he pauses again.

"Yes, please," Ethan replies tightly.

"And what would that be?" Giles takes his hands away from his lover and undoes his own trousers, pushing the clothing down his thighs. He starts to slick his cock with plenty of the gel, rubbing softly as he gazes at the red cheeks and the entrance between them. Better to look there anyway than at the incongruous grey hairs at the base of his own cock and the skin of his belly that looks like ancient parchment next to the pure vellum of Ethan's skin.

"Would it by any chance be time to fuck me now, Ripper?" Ethan asks.

"Maybe. If you ask nicely."

"Beg nicely, more like," Ethan mutters and receives a slap hard enough to make him swear as a reward.

"Behave."

After taking a breath, Ethan does what's required of him, becoming increasingly earnest as he progresses. "Ripper, please. Please, fuck me. Please. I need you inside me, need your delicious cock moving... Christ. Need you. Crave you like a fix. I'm half-dead without you in me, Ripper. Please..."

"Good. That's nice, Ethan," Giles says approvingly. "You're really quite good at giving me what I want, aren't you?" He presses lubed fingers against the ring of muscle, moaning a little himself as they slip within... He yanks them out again almost immediately, no longer prepared to wait. Lining himself up, he presses inside. It's snug and warm, and it feels like home. Giles' groan comes from deep within him.

He tries to watch himself slow-fuck Ethan, watch his own cock piston smoothly in and out, but the sight is too overwhelmingly erotic, and without conscious decision, he grabs Ethan's hips and slams into his lover. The red cheeks slap against his loins with every wild thrust, and the desk inches across the floor.

Ethan is uttering engaging filth as usual, but Giles isn't listening. When he knows he can't go on much longer without coming, he reaches over and pulls on Ethan's hair, pulling his lover's head back. Not too much, just enough to make his dominance clear. He knows what Ethan likes. "Wanna come, love?"

He doesn't listen to the answer either; he knows what it must be. Who would say no in these circumstances anyway? Letting go of the curls, Giles reaches around and jerks Ethan's cock hard, in counterpoint to his thrusts.

There's a count of five, more or less, before Ethan screams, more or less.

When it's all over, they collapse on the floor together, laughing a little and cuddling. Ethan sprawls on top of Giles, perhaps protecting his sore arse from the rug, which is, Giles has to admit, more than a little scratchy under his own.

"Happy?" he asks softly, his fingers playing in Ethan's hair.

"Lovely," Ethan replies, doing something that closely resembles snuggling. "Thank you."

"Wanted to give you something back," Giles explains, although he isn't sure why. "You've given me so much since you returned."

Ethan kisses Giles' chest before laying his cheek on it. "Anything for you, dear."

In that second, Giles knows that when this is over, and whatever cruel trick Ethan is playing this time is revealed, his heart will break and be unmendable. All the king's horses and all the king's men will have no luck glueing these pieces. He shuts his eyes, his fingers tightening reflexively.

"Bad thought?" Ethan asks, tensing as his hair is pulled. Guiltily, Giles moves his hand to Ethan's back.

"I just don't want this to end."

"It doesn't have to. It never needs end, my dear." Ethan raises his head and gives Giles a look of complete sincerity. Can anyone really lie this convincingly? Well, if anyone can that person is Ethan.

"You ready to tell me where you want us to go together?"

Ethan considers that and then nods before laying his head back down on Giles' chest. "Yes. I think so. After we've cleaned up and eaten maybe."

"You never eat here," Giles points out, only just realising it himself. Sugarplums, nutmegs and golden pears -- was that what Giles had been eating here, fairy food? Or was it pomegranates like those of Persephone, their rich red juice cursing him to stay forever in the underworld. It didn't really seem much of a curse, not if Ethan stayed too.

"I do eat," Ethan says. "I just tend to get hungry before you get home."

"Eat with me tonight," Giles insists in turn. "Keep me company." Ethan nods and spiders his fingers over Giles' chest.

Giles notices the semen dripping from his desk and frowns. He closes his eyes and wishes it away, and when he opens them again, it's gone as if it were never there. He chuckles appreciatively. Ethan shifts and tenses in his arms. "How did you do that?" His voice is hard, wary.

"Same way you do it, I strongly suspect." Struggling, Ethan tries to sit up, but Giles just pulls him closer. "I know this is a dream, love. Do I seem to want to wake up?"

Ethan raises an uncertain face to stare at Giles. "You like it here?" He momentarily looks so young that Giles feels rather horribly like a paedophile.

"Haven't you done everything in your power to ensure that I would? Well, I do. Very much." He strokes a soothing hand down Ethan's back, wanting him to relax.

He's not sure why he just confessed, apart from the fact that honesty is always easier for him than pretence, but now that he has, he doesn't want it to ruin anything. An odd sentiment considering the events he's set in motion with Spike, but he doesn't want to force Ethan to throw his hand in early, and he's not sure how helpful the power he now realises he has himself within this dream world might be. And he might as well admit it; he doesn't want to lose this idyll until he has to.

"You can make me forget again if you like," he offers. "But there's no need."

Ethan wriggles further up Giles' body so that their faces are aligned. He stares into Giles' eyes. "You like it here." Not a question this time.

"Yes, love. A great deal."

"Oh..." A slow uncertain smile starts to dawn on Ethan's face. "You like it here!" He takes Giles' face in his hands and kisses him. Despite the opportunity, Giles isn't aware of any attempt to fog his mind, but then he probably wouldn't be. "I was a trifle worried," Ethan says, pulling back.

"About what?" Giles asks, nuzzling against Ethan's face.

"I've put rather too much work into this for you to dismiss it out of hand."

"I want to hear all about it."

Ethan nods, and Giles lets him sit up, chuckling slightly as his lover winces after putting weight on his behind. Ethan gives him a wry smile. "I was going to offer you the chance to look young again like me. If you want it."

Ah. "Do you want me rejuvenated?"

Ethan shook his head. "Flesh and bones don't matter to me, dear one. I'd love you whatever sack of skin you wore."

Giles laughs. "Charmingly put."

He badly wants to believe that Ethan loves him. Wants it like he wants Buffy not to be dead, and he knows it's wrong to give the two things equal footing in his heart. Buffy won't ever be alive again, but it's not impossible that Ethan does love Giles, that he has never stopped. If so, the things Ethan's done in the name of love are certainly not reassuring concerning his motives here. Best not to think about it currently.

Giles looks at his old hand on Ethan's young leg. "Might be nice, all the same."

"Come along then." Ethan moves easily to his feet and pulls at Giles' hand. "To the bathroom for good light and a mirror." Giles quickly restores his clothes back to order although Ethan doesn't bother reclaiming his own discarded garments.

Outside the bathroom, Ethan stops. He runs a hand down the wood veneer on the other door at the end of the corridor, which leads through to the scullery and storeroom. "This is where I want us to go together," he says quietly, almost reverently.

"To do the laundry?" Giles asks, bemused.

Ethan flicks him a grin that seems almost shy. "That's where it leads while you're awake perhaps. Not here. Here this door is our own Eildon tree."

Ah, so he's to be Thomas the Rhymer then. Giles' spirits quirk at the idea of Ethan as the Fairy Queen, luring him away with a touch of rosy lips. He moves forward to the door, but Ethan slaps a hand down onto his before he can touch it. "No, Rupert. Don't open the door until you're sure you want what's on the other side."

"And what's that? Elfland?"

"Paradise." Ethan smiles, looking slightly embarrassed by the word. "Well, as best an attempt as we can make at it."

Giles collects Ethan to him, holding him close, but not so close that he can't focus on Ethan's face. "The Garden of Eden?"

"In a way, yes. You've liked what I've made for us here?"

Giles kisses him briefly. "Very much. I told you."

"Yes," Ethan nods. "You said you didn't want to leave here, that you didn't want this to end. Well, it doesn't have to. On this side of the door, your body's needs and things like telephones can drag you back into the mundane world. On the other side, your ties to earthly life will be severed. It will be just you and I and whatever our imaginations can create forever more."

_This_ is the punchline? Giles shivers. It's to be aided suicide by the sound of it. And yet...

"You don't like it." Ethan seems upset.

"I... I don't know. It's one hell of a lot to take in." Ethan reaches for Giles' face, but Giles backs away. "No, don't make me forget. I want to think about it, what it would mean. The children..."

Ethan folds his arms and pouts. "Bugger your sodding children. They don't need you." Looking down, he adds very quietly, "Not like I do."

"Do you?" Giles asks quietly, contemplating the boyish figure. "Why do you need me so much, love?"

Ethan doesn't answer, but he looks so forlorn that Giles takes him back into his arms and kisses him softly, reassuringly. And Giles is already feeling his memory fill with a fairy mist when he realises that Ethan's fingers are pushing under his shirt to touch skin.


	6. Chapter 6

_"Asatho Ma Sathgamaya. Thamaso Ma Jyothirgamaya. Mruthyorma Amrthangamya" (Lead me towards truth from untruth. Lead me towards light from darkness. Lead me towards immortality from Death)_  
\-- from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 1:3,28 around 3500 BC

The banging on the door would have been enough to wake the dead, Giles thought cynically as he dragged himself up from his grave of a sofa to answer it. He had no idea what time it was, or even what day. Who knew how long the Queen of Elfland had claimed his soul for this time.

His head was pounding, and his mouth felt as dry as if he were waking up after a three-day drinking binge. He badly needed a shower and a change of clothes -- a fact adequately illustrated when he opened the door to Spike, and the vampire shied back in revulsion. "Bloody hell!"

"Yes. Quite. Sorry." He backed away from the door, leaving it open. There was sunlight outside, but Spike was in shadow. "Do you have information for me?"

"Yeah," Spike said, cautiously coming in. He hung his slightly smoking blanket on the hall tree and then waved a screwed up piece of paper at Giles before putting it on the counter top. "Weren't exactly hard to find. He's at the same crappy motel as last time."

Giles felt more than a little stupid for not having considered looking there. "Right. Um, thank you, Spike. Did you find out anything else?" He kept his distance, lurking near the fireplace as Spike prowled around near his desk. He felt a wrench of embarrassment as he realised that the vampire would be able to smell the sex he and Ethan had had over it, then another surge as he remembered that had happened only in a dream.

"Just there's rumblings against him. Seems he's picking on the demon community this time round the merry-go."

An unwanted fist clenched something inside Giles for a fraction of a second. "Is he in danger? Are they planning to attack him?"

"Dunno. Prob'ly, if they find him." Spike shrugged, looking around the place as if umph-day old washing up and a bit of a mess in the living room somehow made Giles' apartment less hospitable than curtains of dust-heavy cobwebs and stone boxes of powdering bones. "Doubt they're looking very hard though, and he's mostly keeping himself to himself. I found him 'cause I knew where to look, is all."

Giles nodded, not examining his relief. "Um, let me give you some money for this."

"Nah. Keep your cash. You can owe me one." Spike paused, staring down at the weapons chest against the kitchen wall. "Why d'you stay here, Giles?" he asked quietly. "Why not go home?"

Giles didn't bother to assert that this was his home. They both knew otherwise. "I've thought about it," he confessed. "Rather a lot at times. But I'm needed here."

Spike nodded, but apparently not in agreement. "Not meaning to be cruel or anything, but who the fuck by?"

That stung. Giles frowned, but forced himself to answer calmly. "They might not think they need me, but they do."

"To do what?"

Exasperated, Giles took a few steps forward before he remembered. He pressed his fingertips into his throbbing temples and wondered where his glasses were. "Do you have some particular reason for wanting me out of the way, Spike? Some arch-villain that you're allied with needs us split apart again perhaps?"

Spike shook his head. "Fait accompli, mate. Don't need me to achieve that. 'M not up to anything here, but-" He shrugged. "Call it curiosity if you like. This town's a mortuary for the likes of you and me. Know why I stay, being dead and all. Not sure of your reasons, for all that you stink like a five day old slaughter in a cathouse."

"Yes, well." Wincing, Giles stepped further back again. "Thank you for your... concern."

"You gonna go spy on Rayne then? Want me along to act as-" He rolled his eyes. "As a punch bag?"

That made Giles smile. Just a little. "Ethan isn't the fist-fighting type. I'll be fine on my own."

"Maybe I should come along all the same, keep an eye on you. She wouldn't've wanted you to get yourself into something you couldn't handle."

"Spike." Giles allowed a commanding tone to enter his voice. "I can handle Ethan Rayne perfectly well, and he's my problem to handle. I neither want nor need anyone else to be involved. Now if you wouldn't mind leaving, I need to take a shower."

"You do at that. But I'm not so convinced of your 'fine'-ness, mate. You look like shit, pardon me for saying."

Privately, Giles admitted that he felt much the same as he apparently looked. "I'll take no stupid risks," he said as if promising, almost laughing at the magnitude of the lie.

Spike studied him. "Right," he said slowly. "Sure you won't." Suddenly, he shrugged. "Not like I really give a toss, is it?" And with that he turned abruptly and, grabbing his blanket, left the apartment. The door swung shut behind him.

Giles sunk back down on the sofa with an unbearable heaviness of being. With a wry grimace at the apt allusion, he tipped his head back into the cushions and closed his eyes... Only to open them again in a hurry as he realised what he was doing. He had to get out of here.

He stumbled like a drunk to the shower, fighting all the way with the urge to slump where he stood and reclaim Eden. Or proto-Eden if he was to believe Ethan's claim for what lay beyond the scullery door. Giles made the shower ice-cold in an attempt to wake himself up, but he experienced a bodily reaction to the sudden temperature drop so extreme he feared he was about to have a heart attack. And wouldn't that be ironic?

His head was pounding as he left the shower again, padding upstairs naked for some clean clothes; so much so that thinking clearly about what he had to do was a distant mirage. His mussed up bed had never looked so inviting. He had to drink something; he'd caught himself drinking the shower water. He was clearly dehydrated. Water and painkillers then. And no, not whisky; that would be... unwise.

Dressed after a fashion, he headed back downstairs, almost tripping over his own feet as he attempted to buckle his belt whilst walking. In the kitchen, he forced down almost a pint of water, along with a cocktail of paracetamol and ibuprofen. Then he cursed his stupidity as the room spun, and he battled the urge to throw up.

If the euphoria of Ethan's fabricated world was the best high Giles had ever known, this hangover had to be close to the worst morning after he'd yet experienced. He noticed the clock, not that it was still morning. He had to get out of here before he gave into temptation and shut his eyes; his eyelids felt like wet sandbags.

After locating his glasses on the floor by the sofa, Giles grabbed his coat, the address, and his keys, and almost ran from his home.

***

Having stopped en route and made himself eat something that had seemed almost entirely composed of lettuce and savoury fat surrounded by dry light bread, Giles felt a little restored by the time he parked his car. He was a little down the path from the motel room where Ethan was supposedly staying.

He had little in the way of preconceived ideas or plans concerning what he would do here. Certainly, he needed to make sure that it _was_ Ethan behind that nondescript door, but after that? He wasn't sure that the violence of previous encounters would be enough this time.

And that was just duplicity, wilful self-delusion, as what he really meant was that he didn't want to hit Ethan, hurt him, break his bones, rupture his internal organs, like he had done before. He found the thought of doing so repugnant now.

After putting the roof up, he was about to leave the car, when he was shocked stationary as the door of the chalet opened, and Ethan came out. Not of course the lithe, curly-haired angel he'd been shagging every which way from Sunday over the last however many days it had been, but the real thing.

As Giles watched, sinking lower in his seat, Ethan lit a cigarette and slumped against the shut door of his motel room as he smoked it. The man looked gaunt, bleak. His hair was cut so short it stuck up like pig bristle. His cheeks were sunken, and his clothes just draped from him as from a hanger. He stared straight ahead, blank of expression.

Giles hurt inside seeing his one time lover, long time enemy, looking like that. He found himself wondering. He knew nothing about Ethan's sex life after they'd parted, but he had his suspicions of its nature. It seemed far from impossible that Ethan could have caught himself something deadly between the sheets. Or perhaps... cancer? It was a known risk of Chaos after all.

Or maybe...

It was the shorn hair that pushed the realisation into the forefront of Giles' mind. Ethan had said that the American military were after him. Perhaps he had only recently escaped the Nevada prison, and the more-than-half-starved look, and the hair, were both the product of Ethan's time there.

Giles shivered. Really, he should have checked on Ethan a year ago after he'd discovered just what level of immorality the Initiative had sunk to. He should have, but he hadn't. And he had no good excuse, just petulance and a case of out of sight, happily out of mind.

So was this revenge for Ethan? Did he intend to lure Giles through his magic doorway into a cell of Giles' own in which to languish?

Or did he, just possibly, really want what he claimed to want? An eternity in Never Never Land with 'his Ripper', both of them perpetually young and beautiful?

Ethan tipped his head back against the wood and exhaled a stream of smoke. He had the appearance of a war-scarred veteran, haunted and hollow-eyed. He looked almost alien to Giles. This wasn't his Ethan, his sweet rascal love. This was an ill old man with a face eroded by time and torment into a moribund mask.

But then Ethan smiled to himself briefly, for reasons Giles couldn't guess at, and for that quick moment Giles could see the boy that he loved in that war-worn face. Yes, loved. Giles really was in quite desperate straits here, wasn't he? It half-broke him to see Ethan like this.

Flicking the rest of his cigarette away, Ethan sighed visibly and went back inside. Giles stared blankly at the chalet door for a while and then started up the engine.

He couldn't do it. He couldn't kick down that door and bully that broken old man into confession. Giles had done some hard and terrible things during his life in the name of pragmatism and what was Right, but he couldn't do that. Not yet. Not when there was a better way.

With a sigh as heavy as Ethan's had seemed, Giles put the car into drive and pulled away.

***

He had something he had to do before he went home, and it really was getting alarmingly easy not to analyse or even question his motives for doing things currently. He drove out of Sunnydale, stopping for petrol on the way and congratulating himself rather pathetically for having the foresight to do so.

Leaving the car parked off-road, Giles trudged through the woods, pushing through brush and briar where he had to. It took him over an hour to find his destination; Willow's 'walk on by' spell was protecting the site a little too well in his opinion. Eventually, through dint of some forced concentration, Giles found the glade; found the lonely headstone and the grass-covered mound, which had settled a little since he'd last come here.

They'd buried her themselves of course. Spike and Xander had stolen the coffin under a temporary flag of truce, leaving behind sufficient of Giles' funds to cover the theft. It was a style of coffin that Dawn remembered Buffy had liked 'sort of' after Joyce's death.

Giles, Spike and Xander had dug the grave -- men's work -- while the girls had watched and tended and occasionally wept. It was strange how in times of extremity, gender roles reverted to old-fashioned expectations. Ironic, considering the little girl they were burying, who had been stronger than them all.

The headstone had come later. Giles recalled ripping muscles while helping to carry the marble through the woods. But no amount of masonry or carefully tended flowers made the grave any less lonely. Excluded from human society in death as in life. His poor girl.

No parent should ever have to bury their own child. But that was, after all, the honourable route of every successful Watcher's career, to survive their Slayer after seeing her destiny fulfilled. That was the reason for the rules concerning over-involvement, after all. She had been a tool, a weapon in the war against evil, infinitely replaceable.

She could never be replaced.

As usual, and with the usual dull sense of disappointment in himself, Giles couldn't bring himself to speak aloud to the grassy mound, to the small body decaying below. Wherever Buffy was now, she was no more in this grave than she was in the metal and pseudo-flesh of the Bot.

Consoling himself with the thought that anywhere but here surely had to be a good thing, Giles knelt on creaking knees beside where her head would be. He stroked the grass absently as if pushing back hair from a fretful forehead. What did one do when one's purpose in life was gone? Find a new one, he supposed. Or stop living.

Ethan seemed to be offering him both solutions at once.

A single, shameful sob escaped Giles. Shameful perhaps because Buffy deserved so much more from him than his self-control would allow for fear of total disintegration. Giles envied Spike his emotional expressiveness and wondered if it had helped the vampire find any sense of calm or resolution. Sadly, he doubted it.

With a sigh as heavy as the damp soil weighing down the coffin below, Giles stood. "Goodbye, my child," he whispered, his voice quieter than the breeze ruffling his hair. "I won't be coming back here again."

***

When Giles got back to his apartment, there was a note pushed through the door from Xander, containing a chirpily awkward enquiry after Giles' health. It was gratifying how worried they were, he thought. If somewhat aggravating.

Inside, Giles resisted the urge to call for the man-boy who wasn't there... yet. He took off his coat and poured himself a whisky to help himself relax. He wanted, obviously, to sit down somewhere comfortable and invite sleep to come to him, but he had things he had to do first.

He headed for the bathroom where, sleeves rolled up, he set about removing the near-beard from his face. He didn't think about much as he worked; there really wasn't much left to consider now. Finally, clean-shaven once more, he studied himself in the mirror.

Taking into account how much sleep he had been getting, those dark circles had no call to be under his eyes. He appeared, he realised with a small shock, almost as fractured as Ethan had. Not so terribly thin, of course, but there was the same ghost-ridden, haggard quality in every crease of his frighteningly old looking face.

Giles wondered how long that quality had been there, lurking in the lines and shadows of his skin. Although he supposed he knew the answer to that really.

Back in the living room, he set about a brief neatening, then went into the kitchen and did the washing up. He wanted, if possible, to avoid a repeat of Spike's reaction earlier that day. Then Giles went upstairs, changed the rather rank bedding, and took certain papers and documents from the safebox he kept under his bed, bringing them back down with him and placing them in full view on his desk.

Just in case.

He stood by his desk and took a long perusal of his apartment, turning slowly on the spot. So much stuff had accumulated over his time in Sunnydale, adding to the trunks he'd brought with him from England: books, countless objet d'art, weapons, and all the odd period furniture he'd picked up from estate sales, of which there was never a shortage around the Hellmouth.

It was all junk, really. There was so very little here he truly valued. Almost nothing that he couldn't, in a second, turn his back on.

There was his guitar, of course; it had been with him since his youth. Replaceable, he supposed, but a new one wouldn't be the same. His records would be more recoverable, however, with a bit of legwork, although he'd miss the specific scratches and jumps. There was Jenny's rose quartz, and the truly obnoxious tie Buffy had given him one Christmas, and the precious few photographs he had of her and the other children. That was it really.

He couldn't even make himself care about his diaries anymore. He hadn't written an entry since the day she'd died. How could he? When she wasn't even officially dead.

He was not so far off fifty, and what did he have to show for half a century of life? His laugh punctured the silence of the apartment, grown heavy without him realising it. Craving more noise, less grave-like still, Giles took his refilled glass over to the sofa and lifted his guitar.

A song was not, it seemed, in him, so he serenaded himself with some Spanish guitar, encouraging his own spirits to lift. It worked to an extent, and as he put the instrument back down, his mood had moved a little to the left on the merry-to-moribund scale.

He sipped his whisky slowly until it was gone and then put the glass on the floor. His legs he put up on the coffee table as he leant back and shut his eyes. "I'm ready for you now, love," he whispered. "Come take me down the Third Ferlie."

***

"The Third Ferlie?" Ethan asks, sitting down beside him. "What's that?"

Giles smiles softly, so glad to see Ethan that he feels warmed on an almost cellular level. "You were the one who mentioned Thomas the Rhymer," he tells him, reaching out with his hand and noticing with a happy laugh that his own flesh has retained the youth that Ethan restored to him last... last visit. "The Third Ferlie was the path to Elfland if I recall correctly."

He strokes gentle fingertips over Ethan's face: fleshed out cheeks, bright carefree eyes. Giles is relieved at seeing Ethan also so restored, and he feels guilt for that.

"Ah yes." Ethan grins, letting Giles draw him closer. "Neither heaven nor hell, but somewhere Other. Is that as promising as it sounds, dear? Have you made a decision while you were gone so long?"

Nodding, Giles moves his hands, sliding them slowly, sensually down from Ethan's shoulders until he reaches the wrists, which he clasps lightly. "Yes, I had a lot to consider today, and I have come to a conclusion."

Clearly excited, Ethan asks, "Tell me?" As he starts to move one of his arms, Giles grips both of Ethan's wrists hard and surges forward, pushing them behind his back. Uncertain now, despite the kisses Giles presses on him, Ethan frowns. "I wasn't going to-"

"Make me forget. I know," Giles says simply, imagining strong cuffs forming around Ethan's wrists and smiling slightly when he feels the cold metal grow beneath his hands. "But you will." Ethan starts to struggle as Giles sits back. "So now you can't."

Ethan's emotions -- fear, confusion, dismay -- flicker like youth TV writ large upon his face. It's strange how this younger version of Ethan seems to largely lack the older man's obfuscating expressions and gestures. Giles strokes the worried features, encouraging them to smooth out. "Don't worry, love. I just want a little chat, that's all."

"A chat for which I have to be bound."

"I thought it best. I love you, but I really don't trust you at all, I'm afraid. Which brings me neatly to the problem I have with accepting your offer."

Ethan closes his eyes briefly. "You think I'm setting you up for something."

"I think that's a possibility and a strong one. So you have a task in front of you. You need to convince me of what lies behind my scullery door." Pointlessly struggling more, Ethan doesn't answer. His lips are pursed. Giles lets him wriggle for a while, but then pushes him gently back into the sofa. "Shh, now. Calm down. It isn't that bad."

Ethan's angry glance is like a slap. "None of them know what a bastard you truly are, do they, Ripper?"

"A bastard you apparently want to stay with for eternity," Giles points out dryly. "Now stop squirming, or I'll resort to stronger measures." He rubs his thumbs into Ethan's shoulders, where he's holding him down.

Ethan stops moving. The side of his mouth twitches as if attempting some sort of smile. "Not for eternity. I imagine we'll get bored long before then. There's a humane suicide option built in for when that happens."

Giles chuckles without much humour. "Thought of everything, haven't you, in this -- what is it? A pocket dimension?"

Nodding, Ethan gazes defiant. "I'm rather proud of my work, yes. It's infinitely stable and can be whatever we want it to be."

Giles lets his hands relax, sliding them open-palmed, a little way down Ethan's shirted chest. "Not much to challenge us there then."

"Oh, I think we'd find each other challenge enough, don't you?" Ethan has a point. He has two in fact where Giles' fingers are playing with his nipples.

"So why do you want to spend something a little short of eternity with me?"

Ethan hesitates. "Because I love you?"

"If you have to _ask_ me..."

Starting to writhe a little under the attention, Ethan says, "Haven't I told you on countless occasions over our time here how I feel?"

"This pretty mirage sitting here with me has told me, yes. But now I want the real Ethan to answer."

"This _is_ me. Just because..." Ethan grimaces. "The flesh means nothing."

"Doesn't it?" Giles asks quizzically, starting to undo the buttons of Ethan's shirt. "Then why not show your real face? I saw you today, you know. Outside your motel."

Ethan's eyes grow huge and his nostrils flare. He tries to struggle up from the sofa, his bound arms tensed and hard. But Giles pulls him close to his chest, stroking Ethan's hair and making soothing sounds.

"I'm sorry. I won't mention that again. Please tell me why you want to spend a near-eternity with me."

"Why does it matter so much?" Ethan mumbles unhappily against Giles' shirt.

Giles explains patiently. "Because unless I understand your reasons, how can I believe the offer is sincerely made and not some vengeful prank? Consider our history, love."

Ethan takes a deep breath, then another, then says, "This was my last chance."

"At what?"

"At happiness." Ethan snorts bitterly.

Giles feels his face screw up as he tries to work that one through. "Your happiness relies on me?"

"Yes." One word, bleak and alone, like a Slayer's grave.

Despite his own confusion, and the Watcher in him who insists that someone like Ethan has no right to expect happiness, Giles responds automatically to the distress he can feel in his lover's body. He caresses Ethan's chest and back in long, firm strokes and kisses the top of his head. "Why, Ethan?" he asks in the gentlest voice he has. "Why do you need me in order to be happy?"

"Oh, Ripper," Ethan moans, as if in physical pain. "Don't... I can't..."

"Just tell me."

"I did once. It terrified you. So I pretended it was a lie."

Utterly fuddled, Giles carefully lifts Ethan's head and searches the dark eyes for clues. "What did you tell me? When was this?"

Ethan wriggles, perhaps trying to get comfortable, but his bound hands and Giles' embrace mean that he achieves little. Giles takes pity and moves him gently to rest in a more upright position against the sofa back, sitting sideways and facing Giles. He gets a small grateful smile in reward as Ethan says, "It was the first time we ever summoned Eyghon."

Giles frowns slightly as he casts his mind back. The normal mix of excitement and cauterising guilt that always accompanies such memories fills him. "And you told me something?"

"You'd just come back to yourself and were panicking a bit. I thought it might be reassuring for you to know I was safe, so I told you. I told you that... that I..."

"That you'd signed your soul over to me," Giles says, suddenly remembering the claim with absolute clarity, word perfect recall. How very odd and... disturbing. "Ethan..."

"See, you're terrified again..." Ethan purses his lips tightly, sucking them against his teeth. He looks like a child desperately trying not to weep.

Giles stares at him. "I'm terrified by the idea that I've spent twenty-five years holding onto something I have no right to and which I didn't even know I possessed!"

"Didn't you? I've always thought that some part of you must have realised. All those beatings, Ripper, all the flashing eyes and fury. Somehow I never imagined any other miscreants you came into contact with provoked such an... intimate response from you."

Ethan was right, of course. Oh dear Lord, but Giles had had no idea. Not in any conscious sense. Not at all. Twenty five years... "How did you manage?"

"Rather badly in the main." Ethan laughed softly, ironically. "I wasn't... I'm not truly soulless. My conscience, impoverished little runt that it is, is still mine. But when you left, you took everything that mattered."

"I'm sor-" Giles starts automatically then remembers that he currently _knows_ why he left Ethan. "You should have told me. Really told me, not pretended it was a joke."

"You miss your soul when it's taken, you know," Ethan says in a strange dreamy tone, his eyes closed. "Because the tie remains. It's still _yours_. It just isn't in you. The further apart we travelled the more stretched I became."

"God, you're a stupid git, Ethan." Giles feels suddenly angry; he feels he has a right to it.

"Own worst enemy. I know, dear. I'm sorry."

"Can I give it back to you?"

"Sadly no, else I would have said something years ago. I was lost in a fit of drugs and sentimental idiocy when I did the ritual, Rupert." He opened his eyes, met Giles' half-glare. "It's yours forever, and there's nothing either of us can do about it. It's no longer a separate thing, you see."

"It became part of me?" Giles asks, alarmed. Ethan nods. Oh dear God. "I'm your... your soul?"

"In a very real sense, yes. I wanted to show how completely devoted I was to you. Fool that I was, I thought you'd like my gift."

"That's not a gift," Giles says crossly. "It's a responsibility. A... a burden." Lips pursed again, Ethan looks down, and Giles sighs. "Oh, my beautiful, stupid boy." He reaches over and cups Ethan's face, lifting it. "A divine idiot, that's what you are."

Ethan's look is sour. "Blesséd incompetence. That's nice. I don't suppose you feel like freeing my hands now, do you?"

"So you can make me forget all this again? No, Ethan. They're staying bound." Giles moves closer, however, and starts his soothing caresses once again. Ethan looks intoxicating, his arms behind his back pushing his chest out, his shirt half-undone. Giles doesn't bother to try to stop the impulse to touch him.

Ethan may not be able to break the creations of Giles' imagination, but he could presumably make his own and work for a stalemate. He won't though, Giles knows. Ethan is a snake Giles has charmed. Giles is in no danger unless he looks away.

Every instinct Giles possesses tells him Ethan is speaking the truth about his soul, but Giles has trusted Ethan before and been fooled. Still... Ethan _is_ his, and yes, a part of Giles has always known that. There's a level of assumption between them, of permission, that now he actually thinks about it is rather inexplicable otherwise.

"You're mine," he says in his North London drawl, clasping Ethan's shoulders. "You belong to me."

Ethan's smile seems hesitant, but his tone is hopeful when he confirms, "I'm yours. This isn't a trick."

Giles leans in to kiss him deeply for a few seconds. Their lips seem to stick together a little as they part as if a slight adhesion has been created. He asks, "So why the other tricks then? Why the fyarl? And all the other dangerous escapades here and back in England?"

Ethan shrugs. "I was yours, but you didn't want me. I tried to keep away; really, I did. Sometimes I just couldn't. The tricks and jolly japes..." He smirks. "Well, I do worship Chaos, you know."

Giles has a brief urge to slap him; his fingers twitch. "If you didn't, I'd still be with you."

"You never gave me the chance to give it up!" Ethan looks petulant, adolescent. "You just left."

"I'd asked," Giles refutes. "You were more than a little resistant if I recall correctly."

"You never told me it was Chaos or you, Ripper. Never. I adore Chaos; it's my quintessential nature." Ethan stares at him intensely. "But you own my soul."

"I... I didn't know that!" Guilty, and angry for being made to feel guilt when he's certain he has done nothing to warrant it, Giles turns away, leaning back against the sofa and staring at the fireplace. By way of a sudden non sequitur, he finds himself thinking about how the fire has never been lit in this dreamworld, and yet he has always felt warmed, bathed in a fiery glow as if sunbathing.

After a time of silence, Ethan asks, "Rupert, _please_ may I have the use of my hands? I'll promise on something of your choice to leave your memory untouched." He shifts on the sofa and adds rather pathetically, "I have an itch."

Giles considers offering to scratch it, but the cuffs must be getting very uncomfortable by now, so with a quick thought, he dissolves them. The action is a little chilling in hindsight, like a wind blowing down a chimney, causing the fire to flicker and spark, foretelling bad weather outside. Being able to make or change reality by a simple act of will alone seems... unsettling.

Ethan makes a happy noise and stretches his arms up, twisting and turning them to get life back into his muscles. He looks at Giles, head to one side. "Am I allowed to touch you?"

"I thought you had an itch."

"I do." Ethan's smirk is evil in just the right kind of way. He moves close to Giles, still facing him, his uppermost hand raised and not touching. "So may I?" With a cautious chuckle, Giles nods, so Ethan places his hand softly on Giles' thigh, squeezing and stroking.

Giles is leaning in for a kiss when a thought occurs. "Why not force me? Why not lure me through that door, not telling me what's on the other side? You've spelled me into this waiting room world you've made, apparently with access to my own thoughts and knowledge to shape it. You've played with my mind and sculptured my thoughts and emotions. Why stop there?"

"I haven't touched your emotions," Ethan says a little sulkily. "Other than by making you temporarily forget things, anyway. What you feel is your own business."

Giles isn't sure what to make of that, so he just says, "Answer the question."

"The door is an emblem of Janus," Ethan starts to explain. When Giles tenses at the name, Ethan sighs. "Contrary to what you might think, Janus is not fundamentally a spirit of Chaos, I just happen to evoke him a lot in order to create it."

Giles knows this already. "Janus was the Roman numen of doorways," he says as if reciting. "And via analogy, of choices."

Ethan nods. "If you go through the door unknowing, decision unmade... well, I'm not sure where you'd end up. Probably in your own body and awake again, but I wouldn't care to experiment." His hand strokes further up Giles' legs, slipping between them and out again.

Giles groans, then sighs in exasperation; he doesn't want to talk anymore. This is all just... procrastination. He knows what he wants, what he's in this place to get. "Come here," he mutters, dragging Ethan over his lap.

There's a lot of wriggling, but eventually Ethan is astride Giles' thighs, grinning down at him. "This is nice." He slides his hands up Giles' chest and neck until he's cupping Giles' face, which he bends to kiss. When their lips part again, Giles is almost surprised to find out he still remembers everything... or at least, he thinks he does as there's no way to be sure.

"I love you," he tells Ethan, running his hands all over the boyish figure. "And you tell me you haven't made me feel this way, so perhaps I really do. As people have been at pains to tell me, I'm not needed in Sunnydale, or indeed anywhere, except by you and in this place." He makes sure he has Ethan's rapt attention before saying, "Take me to your Arcadia, love."

A slow and burgeoning grin grows on Ethan's face; he pants with clear delight. "Oh my Ripper. Yes. Come on." He slips from Giles' lap, tugging at his hand. "Harp and carp, True Thomas."

Standing, Giles catches himself with an urge to pack a few things. There's nothing here that's any more real than where he's going. He's mad; he knows. When the dreams first started, he'd been convinced they precursed a descent into lunacy, and it seems, in a way, they have. For this is suicide as far as the world he is leaving will be concerned. He can only hope they'll forgive him in time.

When a man is offered a chance to return to the Garden and sweet, blissful innocence it can be hard to say no. Sometimes in the past he has questioned whether knowledge was worth the Fall, figuratively speaking, and today, apparently, he has made an answer of a sort. It's an ironic one for a man who has spent his life in pursuit of understanding, but his Slayer is dead, and he is an ancient tortoise turned on his back in the sun, useless and with nothing to hope for but a death that will come all too slowly. Ethan needs him. And he... needs Ethan.

He allows himself to be dragged to the doorway at the end of his little corridor. They stand there, holding hands and staring at it. Ethan runs his free hand over the wood veneer. "Our bodies will die, of course," he says, almost casually.

"I realised that," Giles admits. "Will it happen immediately, or will we starve?"

"Immediately, I think. Although it's hard to be certain. In theory, our lifeforce will be severed from our physical existence the moment we shut the door behind us." Ethan flicks an amused smile at Giles. "Tell me you're not excited, dear one."

Giles laughs. "I can't." Because he is, very. This is a thrill of anticipation equal to those he would get before their big rituals in his youth. So long since he's done anything for kicks, for himself, but now his time has come around once more.

They reach out together with their free hands and turn the door handle. Beyond the space is creamy-white and empty. A blank canvas, Giles realises, ready for them to paint whatever they want. He grins at Ethan. "Ready?"

"I think you need to kiss my, um, rosy lips once more before we go."

Laughing, Giles scoops Ethan to him and they kiss a kiss of joy and abandon. Responsibilities, destinies, the war of Good and Evil, all these will be meaningless where they are going. Good riddance to them; Giles has done his share. He has served his time and well.

As they pull reluctantly apart, Giles looks at the threshold. He prepares himself to step through. Mentally, he salutes Janus. This decision is his to take, and he is taking it freely. He feels Ethan's hand slipping into his again, and they start to step forward.

And Ethan screams.

For a few seconds, Giles has no clear idea what is happening. Ethan is clinging to his hand and to his shoulder, yet moving backwards, away from the door. His expression shows horror and disbelief. "No! No, not now. Not now. Ripper, don't let them take me!"

Giles grasps Ethan, trying to stop him moving. Something is dragging his lover, Giles realises. Something unseen; something... real world?

Oh Lord, no. Have the soldiers found him? The demons?

Clinging desperately, Giles holds onto Ethan with all his strength, but it serves no purpose. Ethan is becoming immaterial, Giles' arms slipping through the beloved body to meet nothing but each other.

The last glimpse he has of Ethan is of a distraught face, dissipating like a weeping Cheshire cat.


	7. Chapter 7

_"If you persist in trying to attain what is never attained; if you persist in making effort to obtain what effort cannot get; if you persist in reasoning about what cannot be understood, you will be destroyed by the very thing you seek."_  
\-- Chuang Tzu, pre 250 BC

Giles is sitting on the floor, leaning back against the bathroom door. He has his legs pulled up high, his arms wrapped around them. The position is protective, almost foetal. He looks down at the strong young hands that are his in this halfway house and feels younger still, like a child. Like a child left behind.

Giles doesn't know how to wake up.

He's tried everything he can think off, but nothing has worked. Not words, nor gestures, nor attempting to 'fall asleep'. That might have worked if he could actually have done it, but he was far too worried about Ethan to relax. Previously he has been woken either by real world events, or by slipping through dream-sleep. He just doesn't know how to do it at will.

And just about anything could have been happening to Ethan while Giles failed to get it right. And now, now he has problems of his own anyway as the apartment has started to disappear. It seems that, with its creator gone, the construction cannot last, and slowly, it's just crumbling away into nothingness.

Giles seems to have stabilised this corridor, the kitchen and bathroom too. But it takes an effort of will, which means trying to sleep is now out of the question. If only he knew what would happen if he let the whole lot vanish. Would that be deadly for him? Or would he wake up?

"Oh God, Ethan," he mutters. "I'm sorry." Giles feels the loss of his lover like a raw angry wound, still bleeding, still screaming for attention.

Having admitted to himself the entirety of what he has been feeling -- his depression and desperation as well as his love, gratitude and need for Ethan -- Giles now doesn't know what to do with it all. Fuel for a decision of immense personal magnitude while Ethan was here, it now all seems a trifle melodramatic. Almost teenage. Like he was taking himself rather too seriously.

Ethan takes him seriously. He is, it seems, 'everything that matters' to Ethan. And it's hard not to respond to that kind of relevance, hard to refuse to fulfil a need like that. Harder still to ignore his own need to be that vital to someone he loves.

Suddenly, Giles' head spins and the fragment of world around him seems to rock. He has no time to recover, before it happens again, then again. He clutches uselessly at the floor, but it crumbles under his fingers. The last bit of solid pseudo-reality disappears around him, and for a fraction of a second he is in freefall, too bewildered even to scream.

***

Giles opened his eyes to find himself looking from a very short distance at a broad and worried face. He reared away, the back of his head hitting soft furnishing, and the face, which turned out to be Xander's, moved back. Giles could see he was sitting on his own sofa, surrounded by the children. And also Spike, who was shuffling his feet and looking decidedly shifty.

"You woke me up?" Giles asked stupidly, panting a little as he tried to get his bearings.

"You could say that, Rip Van Winkle. Welcome back to Reality, basic edition." Xander had that smile he always wore when he wanted to be frowning.

"Are you okay?" Tara asked softly, handing him a glass of water that he couldn't help but imagine had been about to be thrown over him had he not woken when he did. He sipped it obligingly. He felt... relieved? Distraught? Blank? He had no idea.

"I think so." He forced his chaotic thoughts into something approaching order. Oh dear God. "I need to find Eth-" he started, rising hurriedly to his feet. The attending youngsters backed away to make space for him, and the gap between Willow and Dawn widened to reveal Bu- The Bot. The ever buoyant smile was predictably distorting its face; one hand was firmly clasped around Ethan's mouth, the other holding one of his arms up his back, forcing him to bend over painfully.

"Surprise!" said Willow. "We found the Sandman."

Ethan's eyes were shadowed and angry above the Bot's hand. "Let him go, please," Giles instructed the Bot, ignoring Willow for now.

The robot immediately did what it was told, of course, regardless of the noises of dismay from Xander and Dawn. Ethan dropped to his hands and knees. "He's a bad man," said the Bot. "He needs to have his ass kicked."

Willow was frowning. "Giles, Ethan was enchanting you from afar. He had this big ritual circle and, and, all kinds of nasty componenty things and-"

"And he was naked," Dawn added, her arms folded. "Xander and Spike had to make him get dressed." She kicked Ethan's arse; not very hard. Anya patted her on the arm in a congratulatory fashion.

"Stop that at once!" Giles glared at them both. He strode the few steps to Ethan and helped him up. God, he was so glad to see the man alive and relatively well.

Ethan twisted his mouth in a brief half-smile. "Hello, Ripper. I don't suppose this place of yours has a secret backdoor, does it?"

"You're not going anywhere," he answered gently and guided Ethan back to the sofa where they stood together.

"Whoa. What am I missing here?" Xander asked, somewhat aghast. "Where's all the Guy Ritchie violence and matching accent that this clash of British titans usually brings? What's with the protective all of a sudden?"

"He's still under the spell," Willow announced, using her scared but determined voice.

"I am not under any spell," Giles quickly asserted. "Now, I want you all to leave."

"No way." Dawn glared defiantly at him. "We're not leaving you alone with that, that..."

"Chaos mage," Anya provided helpfully. "And possibly a homosexual."

Tara and Willow turned pointed looks towards her, and she lifted her arms up defensively. "_What_? I never said there was anything _wrong_ with being homosexual... gay... whatever." She rolled her eyes dramatically. "Even Xander has-"

"So I think we should try getting hold of Riley Finn again," Xander interrupted hurriedly. "Not," he added, having clearly just heard himself, "that getting hold of Riley has _anything_ to do with Anya's complete right turn at conversational Albuquerque. Just we have an escaped convict here; Riley and his men might want to hear about it."

"Absolutely not," Giles forbade, feeling himself grow increasingly angry. "I will not hand Ethan over to those... savages ever again."

"Decent of you, Ripper. Really." Ethan shifted beside him. His tone was urbane and amused as if he cared little about what was happening. That annoyed Giles too.

"I am not under a spell," he reiterated slowly with fake patience. "I am not in any danger. I want you to go now so that I can speak with Ethan. _Alone_." Could Ethan's spell be recreated? Did Giles want it to be?

Willow stared at him. "Giles, he was trying to trap you in dreams. You've been pretty much the invisible man for the last week or so."

"I know exactly what he was doing, Willow. I appreciate, very much, that you all care for me enough to be concerned about this. But things are not quite how you may be imagining them, or how certain individuals may have painted them." He looked pointedly at Spike, who rolled his eyes ceiling-ward and turned away.

"So how _are_ these 'things' that we're not getting, Giles?" Xander asked, sounding more than a little pissed off.

"How they are, Xander, is my business." And Ethan's, of course.

"That's just where you're wrong, Watcher." Spike growled, turning back. "You got a mind to be killing yourself, becomes all our business, just like that."

"Aww, how sweet," Ethan said insincerely. "It's an intervention."

Getting dangerously close to losing his temper, Giles scowled at the vampire. "Thought you didn't give a toss?"

"Don't, mate." Spike shrugged insolently. "Don't give a flying monkey what you stuff your tadger in or whether you want to fall asleep and never wake up, or not. But she would've, so I do what I have to."

"Get out," Giles spat.

"Don't talk to him like that!" Dawn seemed to be almost vibrating with outrage. "Spike's a better man than you are!" As the others turned to stare at her with a mixed bag of expressions, she went on. "He doesn't want to leave me. Not like everyone else does."

Spike grimaced in obvious pain and moved forward to touch Dawn, stopping himself at the last moment. Willow and Tara did not abort their own movements, however, embracing the girl in a warm female sandwich, stroking her hair.

"Oh no, sweetie," Tara said, her voice tangy with empathy. "We're not going to leave. We promise." Tears dripped down Dawn's face, but she said nothing, her lips pursed tightly.

Spike wavered on the spot, looking at Dawn with a pained expression. Then he glared at Giles again. "Hasn't she lost enough?"

The answer was, of course, yes. More than enough. But she wasn't Giles' child, anymore than Buffy really had been. How much difference that made, however, Giles suddenly wasn't sure.

Pretending to ignore Spike, Giles addressed Dawn directly. "I'm not going anywhere in the near future, Dawn. I promise." As he said it, he saw again the dream world disintegrating, crumbling into the nothing that it truly was. Although he was neither touching nor looking at Ethan beside him, he somehow felt the man twitch.

Dawn's face screwed up. "Liar!" She tore herself from the witches' embrace and stomped over to Giles' desk, returning with the papers he had left out there. She threw them at him; they fluttered in the air like misshapen butterflies. "People who are planning to stay alive don't leave their last will and testament out for the people they're leaving behind to find."

"Have to agree with the maybe-needs-to-tone-it-Downster on this one," Xander said quietly as Tara wrapped her arms back around Dawn, who buried her face in Tara's shoulder and sobbed.

Bugger. Giles took his glasses off and rubbed hard over his eyes with his free hand.

"Thanks for the shop!" Anya said brightly. "That was very kind of you, Giles. I promise to make lots of money in your memory."

"Anya," Giles said wearily, starting to feel as if this 'reality' was a good deal less real than Ethan's fabrications, "Do I look dead to you?"

"Well, no. Not yet. But you're still planning to, you know, do it, aren't you?"

"An!" Xander pulled his girlfriend aside, and they exchanged pointed looks and gestures.

Was he going to let Ethan take him back to Eden? No, Giles hadn't lied to Dawn. He was needed here; he would stay. A heavy feeling of solidity and purpose seemed to settle in his limbs as he consciously made the decision. He would stay, but not alone.

"I am not," Giles said slowly, pedantically, "going to kill myself. Ethan is not going to kill me. I am not going anywhere in the foreseeable future. You, however, are all going to leave. Now."

Spike was the first to go. He moved across the room in huge strides and slammed open the door. He didn't close it though, and Giles could see him lighting up in the courtyard. Dawn freed herself from Tara and trotted out after him. Tara followed, looking anxiously back as she went.

Willow put her hands on her hips and glared fiercely at Giles. "Now look here, Mr this is my business British stiff upper lip person. If you think-"

"Willow," he interrupted, loading his voice with menace. "Go."

"Or he'll spank you," Ethan added pleasantly. "And he has a hard hand, let me tell you." Willow's fingers seemed to tense at her sides, and Ethan laughed, tipping his head back. "Oh, do throw magic about, yes. He'll love that."

Willow's eyes flashed with something disturbing that Giles had never seen before in the young witch, something that reminded him of himself in ways he didn't want to consider. But she turned and left without another word.

The Bot gave Giles a bright, nuance-free smile. "I hope you recover from your midlife crisis gay-romp deathwish-athon soon, Giles. Have a nice day and read some of your books. You like books." It followed Willow out.

That left just Xander and Anya, both of whom seemed uncomfortable. Giles imagined wryly that Xander's discomfort would not be entirely unconnected to the Bot's words before leaving. It did have an awkward habit of regurgitating conversation at random.

"I don't really want you to die, Giles," Anya said, her tone a little whiny. "I'd be upset if you did."

"Thank you, Anya. That is most gratifying. I'll call you both tomorrow, and now, if you wouldn't mind..."

Xander gave him a searching look, then nodded. "I won't say anything more; it's all been said. But don't you dare think we wouldn't miss you." He wrapped his arm around Anya's waist, and they walked out. As the door shut, Giles let himself sag a little, guilty relief sighing through his limbs like a shot of neat whisky.

"Sweet things, one and all," Ethan commented, his tone cancerous with sarcasm.

Giles turned to him. "They care. I can hardly begrudge them that."

"They don't care about _you_, Rupert. You're just part of the limited stability of their own miserable worlds. They want you around for their own sakes." Didn't Ethan understand that that was enough? It gave Giles a... a purpose. A responsibility.

He took a step closer to Ethan and touched his face with a light whisper of fingertips. The man didn't look any healthier close up than he had outside his motel. He was thin enough to disturb, and his skin was pale and sallow with the texture of worn soft leather. Once so beautiful, now the stuff of those black and white character portraits beloved of arty photographers. The ones who used clever chiaroscuro to highlight every ridge, deepen every wrinkle.

Ethan's face looked like his own deathmask.

As gently as he could, Giles asked, "What happened in Nevada? What did they do to you?"

Ethan stared at him for a long while, expressionless, then suddenly grinned jauntily. "A mug of best Ripper-brewed tea would go down a treat about now, don't you think?"

Frowning, Giles stepped closer still, intending to draw Ethan into a hug, but the other man, also frowning, took an equal step back, maintaining the distance between them. Then Ethan plastered his grinning mask back on.

"Tea?"

Sighing, Giles turned away. "Right, tea." It didn't seem such a bad idea actually; he was still a little parched. "Sit down then, Ethan. Have you eaten at all while we've been... dreaming?"

"Here and there," Ethan answered, obediently sitting on the couch.

"I'll make us some food too. Then we'll talk."

"Lovely." Ignoring the treacly sarcasm, Giles headed for the kitchen.

As he put the kettle on, he pondered how best to approach things. Well, Ethan. Communicating with him out here in the dangerous real world was clearly not going to be as simple as it had been within the safety and comfort of the dreams. Ethan was hiding behind his habitual mask of disdain and mordant wit, and he appeared so very fragile that Giles felt unwilling to push him.

Well, immediate physical needs should come first, he decided. They would, as he had said, eat and then perhaps communication would flow more easily.

He was beginning the process of pasta preparation when a lucky impulse made him turn to the hole-in-the-wall counter for some oregano. He caught the fleeting glimpse of Ethan scooting past, heading for the front door. Bloody hell!

With adrenaline-charged haste, Giles skidded from the kitchen. He caught Ethan outside in the courtyard and slammed him back against the wall. The breath was expelled from Ethan's frame with a grunt. "Where the sodding hell do you think you're going?" 

Giles could visibly see Ethan puffing himself back up into a state of nonchalance. "Oh, come now, Rupert. I gave you the best time you've had in years. Decades, even. There's no call for being so crotchety."

Giles wanted to punch him; the hand not pinning Ethan to the wall clenched into a fist ready to knock some sense into the first flesh it met with. But Ethan's shoulder felt so frail and bony that Giles feared he'd break something without meaning to, so instead he shook him. "Where were you off to?"

Ethan lifted his hands in a gesture part defence, part shrug. "Somewhere. Anywhere. Away."

"Why?"

With a studied look of amused exasperation, Ethan said, "Well, I can hardly stay here, can I?"

"Here is exactly where you're staying."

"Oh, so I'm to be a prisoner of yours now, am I? Don't trust the muscular soldier boys to be able to keep me tied down again?" Ethan smirked. "Probably wise."

"You're not a prisoner."

"I'm not?" Ethan tried to slide out from under Giles' grip. "Well, in that case, I'll just be going." Giles slammed him back against the wall, wincing when Ethan's head impacted with the stucco, but resisting the urge to apologise.

"You're staying here because you belong to me."

"Oh." Ethan rubbed the back of his head, wincing. "Oh, I see. You believed that load of old twaddle, did you?"

That was it. Something cracked and fell apart inside Giles. He shoved himself violently against Ethan, bringing his knee up between the other man's legs. Ethan tensed and held his breath as pain took him for a ride someplace, and Giles felt himself grinning like a wolf.

"Twaddle?" he asked, daring Ethan to claim that again.

"Well," Ethan said, his throat sounding constricted, "I had to get my revenge somehow, didn't I, True Thomas? That Initiative cell really wasn't all that pleasant, you know."

"Bollocks!" Giles pressed his knee up harder.

"Yes," Ethan agreed, tears streaking his cheeks. "That's just what I... used to have."

"You never had balls. Look me in the eye, Ethan."

Instead, Ethan rolled his. "Oh, really, Ripper. Isn't this all a little excessive?"

"Eyes. Now."

With an exaggerated sigh, Ethan obeyed. "Yes, quite pretty. Always liked the Bowiesque asymmetry you sport. Now, is that enough? Can I go?"

"Tell me..." Giles thought for a brief moment. "Tell me you don't love me."

"But I adore you, Rupert. You know that. Heart and soul and all that Ella Fitzgerald stuff."

Giles pulled back and shoved himself bodily against Ethan again, ignoring the sexual thrill it gave him. Ignoring the fact that they were both a little hard it seemed. "Tell me you don't love me."

"Very well. I don't-" Ethan's eyes unfocused; whatever he was looking at, it clearly wasn't Giles. "-love you."

Giles punched him. Not hard, and in the soft part of the gut where there wasn't much to damage, but the blow was enough to cause Ethan to grunt and try to bend over. He couldn't of course, Giles was pressed too closely against him again. "In my eyes, Ethan. Tell me."

"This is a most peculiar game, Ripper. Truly. What, pray, are you hoping to-"

Exasperated, Giles grabbed one of Ethan's arms with his hand, twisting it around so that Ethan was forced to push his body forward, trying to ease the angle of the twist. Giles grinned hungrily at him. "Tell me, or I'll break it."

In obvious pain, Ethan met his gaze again. "I don't lo-" He faltered. Giles scowled. Ethan slumped, defeated, eyes downcast. "I can't. You win. Congratulations. May I go now?"

"I think not." Giles released his arm. "Who does your soul belong to?"

"You."

"Eyes."

Ethan raised his gaze just long enough to repeat, "You," before turning aside.

Something cold and jagged melted inside Giles, and he took a rather shuddering deep breath. "And had the children not interrupted us when they did?"

"Then we'd still be happy."

"In Never Never Land."

Still looking away, his expression decidedly moribund, Ethan snorted softly. "Arcadia was a better analogy. No loony with a hook in my pretty world, you see."

"Only the monsters we would have brought with us." Of which there would undoubtedly have been plenty. Giles thought of that old film -- what was it? The Forbidden Planet? -- and he shuddered. Had they had a near escape from eternal nightmare?

"You were ready to run away with me, True Thomas."

"Don't call me that. And yes, I was. Come back inside now." Giles backed off, but took Ethan's arm. "Come on."

They went inside together, and Giles locked the door firmly. "Go and sit down while I finish making tea and a snack." Still determinedly morose, Ethan walked to the sofa without comment. Giles watched him. "Don't you dare make me run after you again, Ethan."

Ethan sat down, holding his gut and wincing. "Your Ripper-punch hasn't lost any of its edge, I must say."

Giles wouldn't allow the ever-eager guilt any legroom. "That's kind of you to say," he replied dryly, heading for the kitchen.

"I try to be generous with my praise."

Giles lost count of the number of times he looked through the hole in the wall to check Ethan was still there while he cooked, but Ethan showed no signs of movement at all. He seemed to be staring fixedly straight ahead. Maybe he was asleep. Eventually Giles returned to the living room with a tray of food and drink. Ethan looked up as Giles sat down beside him on the sofa, placing the tray on the coffee table.

Giles smiled gently at him. "You'll have to give it up, of course," he said, as he handed Ethan a bowl.

"Of course," Ethan agreed. "Am I allowed to know what precisely I'm giving up?"

"Chaos," Giles answered conversationally, spooning out chilli macaroni into Ethan's bowl and sprinkling a generous handful of cheese over the top. Ethan watched, silent.

He remained silent as Giles served himself with food. Eventually, he said, "Well, that's interesting. And I'm compelled to do this unlikely thing because?"

"Because I can't have a Chaos mage as my, um, partner for life, obviously. Do eat up. You need to recover some body fat."

"Oh. Yes, obviously." Ethan raised his fork to his mouth and chewed in a rather gormless manner, his attention clearly elsewhere. Many forkfuls later, he said, "Rupert?"

"Yes, love?"

"Is this revenge?"

Giles chuckled softly. "It is, perhaps, justice."

Ethan nodded. "I see. In the sense, of course, that I don't."

Giles put his half-finished bowl down and took Ethan's from his hands as well. He drew Ethan to him. "I'm not making the same mistake again. You're staying. Here, with me, in the real world. No more dreams; no more running away, for either of us. I'm afraid I'm giving you no choice about this. I own your soul, you see."

Ethan sat silently, docilely, leaning against Giles and trembling.

Giles kissed his cheek softly. "Don't you believe me?"

"I think I'd prefer another beating. The level of sadism here... well, it's more me, isn't it? It doesn't become you, Ripper."

"You don't believe me then. Okay." Giles shut his eyes, allowing clear water memories to surface before lifting his lids again and focusing on Ethan. "I, Rupert Giles, do so solemnly swear that I accept and treasure the soul of one Ethan Rayne on this day, September the-" He paused, realising he had no idea of the exact date. "This day in September, 2001. I take it and him as mine and will keep and protect both for as long as we both shall live. This I swear by..." He gave Ethan a smile of gentle irony. "By Janus, numen of doorways and choices."

The shivering in Ethan's frail frame grew far more pronounced. His face was a cracked mask, intense emotion showing through the fractures. "Rupert..."

"I'm telling the truth, Ethan."

"I... I know."

"Then what's the matter?"

"I... Chaos... It's..."

"Complicated and unpleasant, I'm sure. But between us, we'll get you out of every mess you've woven yourself into. Didn't we always excel at getting ourselves out of trouble, love?"

Ethan didn't look remotely comforted, so Giles decided a more physical approach might help. He tugged Ethan closer and kissed him softly, tasting the chilli on trembling lips. While Ethan didn't exactly respond with enthusiasm, he didn't pull back either, and Giles continued to gently move their mouths together.

Recalling how Ethan had always found skin to skin to be comforting, Giles kept one hand behind his lover's back, but moved the other to the front, where he began to undo Ethan's buttons.

Ethan caught his hand, breaking the kiss to say, "Don't."

Giles pulled back and searched Ethan's face and eyes for clues. "Why not?" Ethan didn't answer beyond shaking his head; he turned away. Giles frowned. "Have the Initiative left scars? What don't you want me to see?"

Ethan made a strange snorting noise. "Just me. I... Can't we go back into the dream? It would take a while, but with my bits and pieces from the motel I should be able to set it up again, as was."

"No more dreams," Giles told him. "The real world holds all we need."

"The 'real' world is as much an illusion as my creations, I can assure you." Ethan sounded bitter. "Mayavada, Rupert. Jagat Mithya, Nietzsche, even sub-nuclear physics, so I'm told. They all say the same thing. Life is but a dream."

"Yes, well, be that as it may, get used to living in it." Giles remembered many long conversations the pair of them had had when younger, spending whole nights until sunlight poured back into the sky discussing philosophy and religion. Giles with his pragmatic idealism; Ethan exploring foreign shores of thought that eventually led him to Chaos. Giles had enjoyed the discussions and missed them after he'd left. Although not quite as much as he'd missed, in all honesty, the bloody wonderful sex.

Suddenly, Giles understood what was wrong with Ethan. The talk of the nature of reality was sleight of hand, deliberate distraction. Ethan wanted the dream back because he was embarrassed by the condition of his body. Always vain, despite his frequent insistence that flesh was irrelevant, Ethan must hate what age and mistreatment had made of him.

Giles took Ethan into his arms and manoeuvred his more or less passive form around until Giles had one leg stretched out behind Ethan on the sofa, the other with its foot on the floor. Ethan sat between them, his side to Giles, his own legs stretched out along the sofa as well.

"This is nice," Ethan said, settling a little uncomfortably into Giles' arms.

"Yes, it is rather." Giles began to undo the other man's buttons again.

"Oh, Rupert, don't spoil things."

"Shh. Just let me do what I want to do. You know that's what works best between us." He pulled the shirt out of the waistband and unbuttoned to the bottom, pushing the two sides apart. Running his flat hand over Ethan's chest, Giles could feel every rib. He cringed inside at the suffering the half-starved body suggested, but he didn't let that show on his face. "This," he told Ethan, as he continued to caress, "is real beauty. This is who you are, Ethan. It's a mirror to your life; as much a history as, um, the Bayeux Tapestry."

"And of course, you've always had a kink for famous French embroidery," Ethan said dryly, but Giles could feel him relaxing.

"You're beautiful, love. You tell me that flesh doesn't matter, but you're wrong; it matters. It's testament and... and monument. To deny it is to deny yourself, deny reality. I love your flesh, Ethan." Giles kissed the side of his face. "And I love you."

Ethan said nothing, did nothing, just sat there.

Giles felt ever so slightly the fool, but he persevered. "Have I really silenced Ethan Rayne, word weaver and prince of lies?" he asked teasingly.

Ethan chuckled slightly. "You've disarmed me."

Encouraged, Giles ran both his hands freely over Ethan's body, touching everywhere, and laughing when he felt Ethan's cock twitch under the cloth of the cheap trousers, his own responding in kind. He nibbled at Ethan's neck before saying, "You're my favourite possession. I'm not going to allow anyone else to touch you."

The look of happy, flattered lust on Ethan's face was very familiar; it folded time, bringing together boy and man, and making Giles burn inside with love-laden desire. Grinning, panting a little as Giles paid attention to sensitive areas, Ethan asked, "Better than your guitar?"

"Yes. I love you more than my guitar," Giles answered seriously then laughed. "Now, I'm going to take you upstairs and shag you until these old bodies of ours give out for the night."

He cast his thoughts upstairs to his bedroom, wondering if he did in fact have the accoutrements of sex here, as he could hardly make them appear by will alone. He thought he did, however, if a little past their use-by dates. He pushed Ethan up to his feet then stood too.

"In the morning," he continued, "we can talk about things such as Chaos allegiances, soldiers and Sunnydale children."

"Harp and carp, Thomas," Ethan said wryly, clearly not relishing the prospect of the morning discussion.

Giles pulled him tightly to his body. "Understand this, Ethan Rayne," he said fiercely. "You are mine, and I know it now. Wherever you go, I will find you. I just need to tug on your soul to reel you back in. If you're not lying beside me in bed tomorrow morning when I wake up, you better prepare yourself for the thrashing of your life."

"I'll be there," Ethan promised, wincing a little. "Rupert, I really don't think you know what you're getting yourself into here. The pocket dimension would have been-"

"Suicidal and selfish," Giles interrupted. "I don't know, no. But I can well imagine. And tomorrow you will tell me all the disturbing details. Tonight, however, we are going to explore our own little pocket dimension between my -- our -- sheets."

As they walked up the stairs together, Ethan paused, looking out over the apartment. "I've grown to rather like this place, you know."

Giles pressed up behind Ethan, wrapping his arms around him. "It was lovely to come home to you," he admitted fondly. "You made me feel so welcome." Strange how he'd never felt quite that in his apartment before. Giles looked over his living room and thought for a moment that he'd left the fire on as a ruddy glow as if from a red lightbulb seemed to fill the space.

He hadn't left the fire on; the fire had never been turned on. For a few moments, Giles froze, wondering if this room around him was real at all.

Then he laughed, shook his head, and taking Ethan's hand, went up to bed.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the 2004 Gilesficathon. Thanks to mpoetess and Wesleysgirl for the betas!


End file.
